Aquarium Snails

Aquarium snails can be kept in virtually any aquarium so long as the water is not acidic. If it is the snails will have their shell damaged by the etching. Some fish species will eat smaller snails but keeping a larger species such as the mystery snail will remedy this.

Most snails just eat whatever food is going in the aquarium. Left over fish food is readily eaten which makes them a very useful cleaner animal. If there is no food to be found they can resort to eating aquarium plants. Some small species of pest snails will eat aquarium plants but the common pet store varieties can be trusted with many plant species. Algae is also part of a snail's diet and will be scraped from the glass by most species.

Breeding aquarium snails is simple for all species but there is differences between their reproduction habits. Some such as the Malaysian trumpet snail will give birth to live offspring. Mystery snails leave the water and lay a wad of eggs above the water line. Ramshorn species lay a jelly coated mass of eggs on plants or the sides of the aquarium.