A Mystery No More

If you've been looking for a gorgeous snail that eats algae and not your plants, won't bother any of your other snails, shrimp or fish, we have an answer to your mystery. The snail you're looking for is, in fact, is The Mystery Snail, (Pomacea sp). These generalists are great for eating just about everything you don't want in your aquarium, while leaving everything you do. They'll consume the dead and rotten parts of plants, waste from other tankmates, leftover food, and algae growing on any surface that will support them. Here at Aquatropic, we carry a variety of colors, and among them gold is likely the most popular, but we also have blue, black and albino.

Pomacea Mystery Snails are native to South America, and wild populations exist throughout the temperate and tropical portions of the continent. In addition to being pretty and useful additions to freshwater aquariums, they are also considered a delicacy, and they grow very quickly. This combination of traits means that long before they showed up in fish tanks, they were getting spread around the world as a food item. This has resulted in non-native, but wild populations in portions of the US and Asia. They are described as being tender, with a lightly seafoody taste like scallops. They can host a parasite which means they should be thoroughly cooked before eating if you're so inclined.

One of the more interesting things about Mystery snails is that they have both gill and lung functions, so they can survive out of water for some time. They have a siphon they can use as a kind of snorkel, and they'll actually lay eggs above the water line. When planning your display, make sure you include a tight-fitting cover. They usually won't make it much out of the water, especially when they get some size, because they'll be unable to support their weight on the vertical surface of an aquarium edge, but better safe than sorry. There isn't a minimum size aquarium for these invertebrates. That being said, a single specimen would be more than ample for cleaning up five or even ten gallons, unless you are massive over-feeder or have a very heavily stocked aquarium. They are perfect for planted aquariums, and will usually only consume plants that are dying, or even partially rotting, which is actually doing you a favor! They don't need sand, but if you give them a soft sand bed, they will sometimes bury themselves in it during the day.

In regard to the water in this tank, Mystery Snails are also generalists. They don't even need much in the way of oxygen, as they can just go up to the water surface and get a breath of fresh air. They can be kept in temperatures anywhere from 60 – 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and we've seen reports of them living down to 50! They aren't sensitive to water quality issues and can be kept in just any hardness and pH that other fish, inverts and plants can also live in. As a result, they could be used in displays as diverse as a Koi tank or a planted aquarium full of Discus and Tetras.

On the topic of tankmates, they're going to dictate the décor and water parameters of the display, and these snails can be kept with pretty much anything, with a couple exceptions. Some Loaches and pretty much all Pufferfish are going to hunt down and eat snails, so Mystery's would be on the menus. Some fish will pick on the snail's siphon/snorkel, and these will grow back. If you're interested in breeding these snails, which is totally possible, you may want to keep them in a display without fish as the baby snails are food for just about any fish and remember, they're delicious. Other than that, they aren't that difficult to breed and make a great project for first time invertebrate breeders. You'll need a male and female, so start with six or eight snails so keep odds of this high. Next, keep the aquarium warm, and the water quality good and make sure there is enough food. Don't fully fill the aquarium because remember, their eggs get laid above the waterline. The eggs will hatch in about a month, and slightly faster in warmer conditions. They babies can be as big as pea in as little as week! Within a couple months, these little guys will be big enough to reproduce themselves!

If you only have a single snail in a 10–20-gallon tank, it likely won't need too much extra feeding as long as you're getting your fish plenty to eat. Mystery snails are good algae eaters, but they also need some detritus in the way of fish waste, leftover food and rotting plants. If you're tank is too clean and you want to add some food, they do very well on the Nutramar Algae and Color Boost Shots. You can also blanch vegetables for them to eat, like zucchini or kale. Fast growing snails might also need some supplemental calcium as that is what they use to grow their shells. Regular water changes should provide enough, but if you have a lot of snails and maybe other inverts like clams or shrimp, you might think about adding small pieces of cuttlebone or some crushed coral to help maintain an adequate calcium supply.

See? We've solved your mystery. This is the snail you want in pretty much whatever kind of display you have! They're useful, adaptable, incredibly hardy, and did we mention gorgeous? No? Well, they are. Since they are so adaptable, take care not to release them into your local environments as they can quickly become an invasive pest. Head over to your LFS and ask them to get you a few Mystery Snails, maybe even in a mystery pack of colors, from Aquatropic today!