Freshwater Aquarium Snails Australia

20/05/2022

Mine, all mine!

One of my beautiful purple Mysteries curled around his wafer to keep his friends away! So 🥰

14/05/2022

Pond snails

These guys are slow breeders but do very well in outside ponds, as the name suggests. Almost completely brown, they have a cute little twist at the rear of their shell that distinguishes them from other snail species.

Easy to population control as the breed very slowly, so removing them as you find them is simple and effective.

13/05/2022

Common freshwater snail size comparison.

Adult Ramshorns on the right, with an adult Bladder snail shell next to them. The two on the left are a baby Mystery about 1 - 2 week old and another about 4 - 5 weeks old. The large shell at the back was a fully mature adult female about 3 to 4 years old. Mysteries can reach about the size of a golfball, and are easily the largest of all aquarium snails in the hobby (with the exception of maybe the Rabbit snail).

12/05/2022

Just a Mystery walking on water, upside down! They love to ‘walk’ on the top surface area of your tank, cleaning the surface as they go. It’s truly fascinating to watch them push themselves around using the surface tension.

11/05/2022

Purple Mystery Snails breeding at the moment. Aren’t they beautiful 😍

09/05/2022

Baby Gold Mystery Snails almost ready for shipping. Please contact me if your interested. Thanks

06/05/2022

One of the Gold Mystery babies wandering their tank!

05/05/2022

05/05/2022

Snails love 💕 different things to crawl over. And they will go absolutely everywhere!

05/05/2022

03/05/2022

Newly hatched baby Mystery snails!

Gold and Purple Mystery snails will be available in the future once they grow up a bit. Delivery available to QLD, NSW, VIC, SA and NT.

03/05/2022

How to tell if your Mystery snail egg clutch is about to hatch!

When laid, Mystery egg clutches are pink with a white tinge. After 2 days, they turn completely pink and will stay that way for some time (can be a couple of weeks).

When the clutch turns grey and white, the baby snails are about to hatch and should be moved to their breeding box and floated on a piece of foam.

Then sit back and watch them hatch!

02/05/2022

Mystery Snails come in a few different colours, like the two here (a Purple Mystery snail and a Gold Mystery). These snails are either male OR female, never both. For these snails to breed, you must have one of each in your tank to get baby snails.

This pink bubbly package is an egg clutch laid by the female Mystery snail. She only lays these clutches above the waterline in the tank, about 5 to 10cm, as they do not survive submerged in water. If you have Mysteries in your tank and do not want baby snails, the easiest solution is just to keep your waterline high and do not provide adequate space free of water to lay eggs in.

The other way to stop breeding is to simply remove clutches as they appear. They are still very soft for the first two days after laying, but then they harden to the point you can just push them off the glass intact. To be humane, please place the clutch in a freezer for a week to ensure no embryos develop, then you can just toss them out.

Clutches need a nice humid environment to hatch in, so they often dry out to much to be viable anyway. Mysteries have been known to lay their eggs in some very weird places, and you will be surprised at just where your Mystery can get to.

This is a species that owners are not surprised at finding halfway to the door of the fish room after escaping from the tank during the night. A secure lid is a must if keeping Mysteries.

Mystery snails are also the largest of the freshwater snails commonly kept in the aquarium hobby. Although they start off as not being much bigger than a pin head, the largest can easily reach the size of a golfball. They easily dwarf any other species on here for shear size, and this means they can be quite strong as well. It is not uncommon for people to find their Mystery has rearranged the tank decor overnight.

Overall, the Mystery snail is a beautiful, large snail that does very well in fish tanks, and is easy to maintain population wise. Personally, they are my favourite snails in the hobby, and they have some stunning colours.

Good luck & have fun!

30/04/2022

Controlling Ramshorns & Bladder snails in your aquarium.

Ramshorn and Bladder snails are both hermaphrodites and lay their eggs underneath the water on any surface they can find. I’ve found their jelly-like egg filled sacks on tank walls, gravel substrate, wood, resin, plants and even other snails shells.

As any two of these snails (same species) can breed, if your tank has plenty of food, these snails will soon multiply into the hundreds. Bladder snails are more prolific than Ramshorns, but that does not negate the fact that Ramshorns can overtake a tank if your not careful.

Both species will breed to the maximum capacity that their food will allow. If there is uneaten fish food lying around, algae or other food in excess in the tank, then more eggs will be laid.

To control numbers of these snail populations, a clean tank with the bare minimum of food waste should be kept. Also, removing any egg sack as you find them will reduce and control the amount in the tank as well. A very handy tip for this, is a fish that will eat these egg sacks with relish. I have personally had great success with Goldfish, they slurp them up like jelly and will hunt out every last egg sack in the entire tank (though make sure, if it is a tropical tank, that there is no fish in that tank the Goldfish will eat as well (when I get a snail explosion, I remove everyone from the tank, turn the heater off, and then get my biggest couple of Goldfish from my Goldfish tank and leave them for a few days to eat ‘everything’)). I have heard that Gourami’s also love to snack on eggs as well.

For more mature snail explosions, either pick each snail out by hand or a larger Goldfish should be used. Remove every animal you wish to keep, then put a large (10cm or more Goldfish in and they will eat all the snails over a week or two, though they won’t eat snails that won’t fit in their mouths).

The other option is to remove snails manually. DO NOT crush snails in the tank and leave them, this just gives surviving snails more to eat, which means more eggs, which means even more snails. Reach in and pick them off, or place a finger on them and slide up the tank wall and they’ll slip right off. This might take a while to do and you will have to check your tank every day for more snails, but eventually you will either get rid of them completely or control their numbers.

The last solution is to dose your tank with a snail medication that contains copper to get rid of unwanted snails. Be aware that this will affect and kill ANY snail, shrimp or invertebrate in your tank, and that it will linger for a long time as well.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if needed, and good luck in your hobby!

29/04/2022

Different freshwater snails you can get in Australia. Different species will live in aquariums either peacefully or invasively.

For the most part, the difference is how and how fast they breed.

All Mystery Snails (regardless of colour) are one s*x. So each snail is either male OR female. To breed, you need a snail of each s*x, so if you are only wanting one snail, this is the best species. The easiest way to stop Mystery Snails breeding is to ensure that the waterline of the tank is high, only leave a gap of only a couple of centimetres.

Ramshorn and Bladder snails are both hermaphrodites. Which means that every snail are BOTH male AND female. If you get two of these (same species) they will breed!

Future posts will go further in depth for each species. See you later!

29/04/2022

29/04/2022

29/04/2022

29/04/2022

Hi! Welcome to Freshwater Aquarium Snails Australia!

This site is dedicated to all things freshwater snails for aquariums.

We are a small snail breeder in Central QLD focusing on Mystery Snails in all their colours, Gold and Purple currently, with other colours to come!

Please feel free to join in as long as you are respectful and polite. Bullying or nasty comments won’t be tolerated, but please share your experiences and help with others. Every little bit helps!

Contact us or the posts author if you are interested in any of the snails on here (and feel free to post your own). But please remember that currently, snails can only be shipped within QLD, NSW, VIC, SA and NT. WA and TAS are not currently accepting imports of live animals.

Please display a ‘HELP’ sign on your post if you need help and we will offer what we can.

Or, if you wish, just send us pictures of your little cuties or your stories of keeping freshwater snails in Australia.