Advice on snails, want to breed them possibly for puffer food

So I know this one is weird since most are trying to get rid of snails. I possibly want to breed them.

I have been looking into a puffer and realize they need hard food items to wear down their teeth. Snails are one of the food items used in this case.

So what does it take to raise food snails?

So questions are:
1. What size tank is required? (What equipment do I need)
2. What type of snail to get? (Ive heard some have too hard of shells)
3. Is this realistic, to keep up with a hungry puffer? (Or do snails grow too slow to cultivate as a food item)

Im just at the research part of this. The puffer has not even been determined yet but it would have to live comfortably in a 40B.

Lots of people manage to raise plenty to feed their puffer my little 2 gallon is full of bladder snails no raising required. But I think you'd have to get a good population growing first with lots of eggs being laid to keep up, and of course it would depend on how big the puffer gets to figure out just how many you need going. A little pea puffer wouldn't need too many while Hank had moved on from snails mostly LOL I've only heard of one kind with shells too hard and it was either ramshorn or Malaysian trumpets. Snails require about the same fish do, and eat veggies and need a source of calcium. Be it the bird calcium thingies or other snail shells exc.

Ive also heard of using clams in the shell. I really dont want to have to raise snails but Im just researching at this point. I guess some are more piscivores and may even not eat snails anyway.

For my GSP I have bladder snails I buy and put in tanks (which have bred but not fast enough) and feed Krill as a primary food source. About once a week I won't feed him krill for 2 days and in the night he snacks on the snails in his tank keeping his teeth ground down. Seems to be working well for him so far. And he LOVES the krill. I buy them from Ken's. I can hold the krill in my fingers and he will come up and bite it and take it from my fingers. I believe the MTS are too hard of a shell and the bladder snails seem to be appropriate. They do not eat the whole shell though. Just at the opening to get to the snail it self. Then I have to remove the snail shells when empty. I haven't tried clams since the krill and bladder snails are working.

Right now I am looking at three puffers in particular, Hairy Puffer, Congo Puffer, Arrowhead Puffer

They are pretty much the same in regard to care so its just a matter of finding the one I like the most and being able to feed and care for it it right.

I have tons of ramshorn snails, if you decide you want to breed snails let me know.

Thanks MorganEA for the offer. It will see be a little while, if I do decide to do this. I still have a fish in quarantine to deal with and growouts that need to get some size on them. Then the  final decisions on what fish go in what tanks. I pretty much have it figured out that the 40B should be free when Im done. So I might need to buy a snail breeding tank when the time comes.

This last year my 140 has accumulated a nice population of MTS. Shorty's last post about snails got me thinking about cultivating some and share them within the community , I could do this for stores as well for store credit.

If your feeding a fish 1-2 snails a day you maybe able to support a snail population. But if your throwing in like 10 a day then I would think it would be difficult to keep up.

Here is  my suggestion for cultivating snails. Get a 55 gallon tank. Plant it.... Add snail population by gathering from WashFishBox members.... Throw in a school of fish and feed em fat. You'll have a bunch of snails in no time

Thoughts?

A 55 gallon snail breeding tank is too much. I think I would look to some frozen food sources before doing that.

I ended up with a bladder snail from the plants fishNAbowl, I was grateful and tossed it in my puffer tank I wonder if MTS have too hard of a shell?

DMD123 wrote:A 55 gallon snail breeding tank is too much. I think I would look to some frozen food sources before doing that.

  - Was trying to get you to plant a tank, not grow snails. Snails are sort of a bi product and go hand in hand with planted tanks...  

fishNAbowl wrote:

DMD123 wrote:A 55 gallon snail breeding tank is too much. I think I would look to some frozen food sources before doing that.

  - Was trying to get you to plant a tank, not grow snails. Snails are sort of a bi product and go hand in hand with planted tanks...  

   Now I get it   

So 'The Puffer Forum' had info from some puffer owners that all three puffer types Im interested in do not require the hard foods and that they are piscivores. So maybe what I need is to breed some livebearers instead.

Ever since I got my Target Puffer (about two weeks now), I've set up a 2.5 gallon tank and just picked up a bunch of snails from my other tanks and dumped em in that 2.5 gallon tank, bare bottom, and I plan on just placing a bunch of food in there such as cucumber or sinking pellets. Any food that's just laying around, really.

I've got a mix of ramshorn snails and bladder/pond snails right now. I think that's all I will do for now since puffers can't break malaysian trumpet snail shells.

fishNAbowl wrote:This last year my 140 has accumulated a nice population of MTS. Shorty's last post about snails got me thinking about cultivating some and share them within the community , I could do this for stores as well for store credit.

If your feeding a fish 1-2 snails a day you maybe able to support a snail population. But if your throwing in like 10 a day then I would think it would be difficult to keep up.

Here is  my suggestion for cultivating snails. Get a 55 gallon tank. Plant it.... Add snail population by gathering from WashFishBox members.... Throw in a school of fish and feed em fat. You'll have a bunch of snails in no time

Thoughts?

Yes...that's why I have so many snails in my planted tank. It's not an infestation, it's an ongoing snail breeding setup. yup, that's it     

DMD123 wrote:

fishNAbowl wrote:

DMD123 wrote:A 55 gallon snail breeding tank is too much. I think I would look to some frozen food sources before doing that.

  - Was trying to get you to plant a tank, not grow snails. Snails are sort of a bi product and go hand in hand with planted tanks...  

   Now I get it    

haha I was kind of thinking the same thing.

After doing more and more research, I like the fact the types of puffers I am wanting do not require snails. Many said they fed earthworms, home raised feeders and crayfish/crab. So I think I might be able to do this pretty easily.

I would love to be able to do the self cloning crays but I know they are not legal here. What about the fancy 'lobsters' that are allowed? Are they easy to breed? Though the resale value on those is worth more than using them as feeders.

Well I learned something new. I didn't know self cloning crays were illegal. Although I've never wanted to have one. Great news about not needing snails. On another forum I'm part of a girl has a ray and the only thing she can get it to eat is earth worms lol. She has tried garlic on scallops and all kinds of stuff.

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote:Well I learned something new. I didn't know self cloning crays were illegal. Although I've never wanted to have one. Great news about not needing snails. On another forum I'm part of a girl has a ray and the only thing she can get it to eat is earth worms lol. She has tried garlic on scallops and all kinds of stuff.

She needs to wrap the scallops in bacon.
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DMD123 wrote:

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote:Well I learned something new. I didn't know self cloning crays were illegal. Although I've never wanted to have one. Great news about not needing snails. On another forum I'm part of a girl has a ray and the only thing she can get it to eat is earth worms lol. She has tried garlic on scallops and all kinds of stuff.

She needs to wrap the scallops in bacon.

Great, now I'm hungry.

bronzefighter wrote:

DMD123 wrote:

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote:Well I learned something new. I didn't know self cloning crays were illegal. Although I've never wanted to have one. Great news about not needing snails. On another forum I'm part of a girl has a ray and the only thing she can get it to eat is earth worms lol. She has tried garlic on scallops and all kinds of stuff.

She needs to wrap the scallops in bacon.

Great, now I'm hungry.

haha... dang, now I am too... I do have scallops in the freezer. I think I know what I'm having for lunch!

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote:

bronzefighter wrote:

DMD123 wrote:

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote:Well I learned something new. I didn't know self cloning crays were illegal. Although I've never wanted to have one. Great news about not needing snails. On another forum I'm part of a girl has a ray and the only thing she can get it to eat is earth worms lol. She has tried garlic on scallops and all kinds of stuff.

She needs to wrap the scallops in bacon.

Great, now I'm hungry.

haha... dang, now I am too... I do have scallops in the freezer. I think I know what I'm having for lunch!

Snails?

Yes snails. Mark your calenders, National Escargot Day is May 24th.
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I didn't take a picture but I had sauteed scallops in garlic butter

DMD123 wrote:Yes snails. Mark your calenders, National Escargot Day is May 24th.
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YUCK!   I'll leave that to the puffers!