So bummed

So after wanting some for years I finally bought some briggs from a user on here. There was always a concern that they'd go after my plants but everyone kept saying that they'd leave them alone if food was supplied to them. Everything was going fine for a while when I started noticing leave stripped from the stems and large holes through my very thick leaved anubias. At that time I sprinkled shrimp cuisine and part of an algae wafer in the tank for the shrimp and figured the leftovers would be enough for the snails. Well that obviously wasn't working so for over a week they've had a constant supply of blanched cucumber, algae wafer, seaweed and peas(not all at once but there was always easy food in the tank 24/7) which they readily devour and my plants are still being eaten. I wanted this to work so bad, they're beautiful snails that look great in the tank but it just isn't working.

As they climb to the top I've been transferring them to a divided 5gal betta tank temporarily until I can figure out what to do with them. I wanted to do a 20gal long divided betta tank so that I could take down my 5gals and I might leave a 1/3 of the tank free of dividers for the snails. I wanted to breed these guys but all the tanks I have where they're not in danger of being eater have plants. I don't know, I might just have to find them a new home in the future. Just so bummed.

I know this is an old thread... but I've read it a few times now and figured I'd respond anyways.

My experience with mystery snail appetites is the same as yours - they're voracious eaters. Mine down a decent-sized pile of Ken's veggie sticks every day. When I kept mine in my heavily-planted community tanks in the past, I didn't have any problems with them munching on my plants. It's possible I just didn't notice the damage, but I'm pretty certain they weren't eating them. Maybe they like anubias for some strange reason? I didn't keep anubias in the tanks where I had them in the past; I did keep swords, ludwigia repens, java moss, duckweed, and maybe a couple of others. Some of them did eat duck weed.

Now that I have them in one half of a divided 10g, they don't eat the java moss, guppy grass, or subwassertang in that tank, but I think they might be munching on the frogbit on the surface. a bit. They're growing super fast too... thanks to no competitors other than a few shrimp.

Did you find a better home for them?

No I still have them, they were eating my pink hygro mainly which is a delicate plant. They're chilling in various tanks for now and I think I finally have it figured out the way I want things to be. I have to unfortunately set up a tank for baby fishies because I'm a big softie and hate the thought of a momma fish baring young for long and then them being eaten. So I have a 15gal metaframe tank I have to reseal that I'll use for a fry tank and I figured seems how I'd have to chase down baby fish with a net from time to time I'll just do the tank with artificial plants.

Thanks for replying, this post got no love lol

A fry tank is a perfect place briggs - their output promotes infusoria growth which is always a good thing where fry are concerned.

You could always throw some frogbit in! Even if they do munch on it they shouldn't be able to eat it as fast as it grows and it's awesome for water quality. Plus, fry love hiding spots and frogbit will provide plenty of small shady spots. I'm a shameless frogbit promoter.

I'm a duckweed rebel myself. I just need to get my hands on some. Someone offered me a bunch but they are hours away. I wanted to get a steady supply of it from someone because I wanted to use it in my goldie tank primarily for part of their diet. I'm looking for a steady supply of pest snails too but who ever is offering then always seems to be hours away too. I made some snaillo for the first time last night and the briggs shells were showing some calcium deficiencies. I feed them a lot of fresh produce but I guess it's not enough. I threw this huge chunk into the tank and I'm like shoot that's way too much and after 6hrs it's gone. I used 1 container of gerber, knoxx gelatin, 10 calcium pills and a couple heaping handfuls of flake food. Everyone was just nom noming that s*** up. The fish were pecking at it(i would have figured they'd be shy of a new food but nope) and the plecos were really going at it. Now I'm mad at myself for not making snaillo sooner. Seemed like so much work for snails but it took less then 5mins. Hopefully the calcium pills will help their shells.

I've never made snaillo...though I've considered it. I feed mine ken's "veggie sticks with calcium" mixed with some ken's "brine shrimp sticks". Seems to be doing the trick so far. I had serious shell erosion issues in the past (my KH is only 4, GH is 3) so I'm keeping a couple of cuttle bones in the tank this time. So far the shells are looking great! We'll see how well they do long-term.

Might as well share some pics of my snails

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I got the briggs from gilbertonfisher(sry if i typed username wrong) I'll get a yellow and black brigg from petsmart when I have the fry tank resealed. I always wanted to breed these guys to see what colors I can come up with. I want some baby blues and ivorys. I've seen magenta briggs too. I'll be going to apfp next weekend and I'll see if they have some different colors there.

They look great! I got my latest batch from her too.

I successfully raised ivorys, purples (light and dark footed), and blues from a single batch a while back, before some stupidity wiped most of them out. I have a single blue and a single light-footed purple / magenta left from back then. Hopefully I'll get some more blues in the future as I think they're my favorite color.

It'd be fun to do a snail trade one of these days if I can successfully hatch out some babies. I've thought about ordering some different colors on aquabid but throwing money away on shipping just kills me so breeding to see what I come up with seems like the best choice. This thread inspired me to get to work on my 15gal metaframe. Got the corroded light fixture out of the hood which took so long but its done. The hood needs a new light fixture and some rust remover. I probably won't have a chance to go to the hardware store till next weekend so I'm going to get the tank resealed as soon as possible and just run it without the hood(course ill have a cover on it so the snails don't escape) and then finish the hood when I have the supplies. I was going to do a cheepy incandescent fixture but then I decided I wanted floating plants and java moss in the tank. May also have some subwassertang in there too.

Ratlova,

I'm trying to rid my tanks of duckweed..! When we trade I'll try to bring a bag of that for you too! My preference is frogbit for floating plants. I had some in a 10 gal tank several months ago and the roots reached the substrate at the bottom. It looked fantastic..! Well, in a natural sort of way..!

Ron

My oldest female keeps laying infertile egg masses... not sure what the deal with that is. Hopefully I'll get some eggs soon and then we'll see what colors I get. I need to move all my celestial pearl danio fry out of my divided fry tank to clear out more room for snails and shrimp. I've overfeeding in there for the snails sake and it's causing my PH to dive I have some seachem alkaline buffer on the way which will hopefully pull my PH back up in 2 of my tanks. My water just doesn't have enough buffer to hold the PH up when things start getting crowded.

I light my 10g tanks with dual incandescent perfecto hoods with pairs of 18w to 23w 6500k CFL bulbs and my plants are quite happy. I light my 20g and 29g tanks with 30" T5HO coralife fixtures (since they're the only ones out there that make 30" T5HO fixtures).

I have some subwassertang, but it's never thrived for me. On the other hand, it's never totally died off either... I've been trying to coax it into better growth; we'll see.

fishloverRon wrote:Ratlova,

My preference is frogbit for floating plants. I had some in a 10 gal tank several months ago and the roots reached the substrate at the bottom. It looked fantastic..! Well, in a natural sort of way..!

Ron

I've had frogbit roots nearly 2 feet long before in tanks with no water movement.

That's amazing. Interesting...my had very little water movement too.

Thanks Ron! You guys are being so good to me. When my mother got sick and right before I took all my tanks down I had a couple tanks that just had snails and water lettuce in it and I had unplugged the filters and heaters and the tanks sat for weeks with just the cheepy incandescent light on and the water lettuce flourished like nobody's business with the still water. I decided this year when the warm weather comes I was going to set up a small pond outside with some snails and floating plants and try and grow masses amounts of duckweed and frogbit and water lettuce if I can get my hands on some. In the mean time I'll make some of my plant corrals with my airline tubing to give the floaters a chance.

I've had my subwassertang for a few months now and it's grown a little. It's one of my favorite plants, reminds me of seaweed. I think my tanks just have too much current for my mosses and the subwassertang to thrive fully. Same deal with the java moss, when it sat in a tank with still water and just a light it spread like mad

pbmax wrote:My oldest female keeps laying infertile egg masses... not sure what the deal with that is. Hopefully I'll get some eggs soon and then we'll see what colors I get.

I had posted something I borrowed from another forum of a user that raises briggs and it has her incubation method. It may be that you just by some streak of bad luck don't have a male brigg in the tank.

Ratlova30 wrote:It may be that you just by some streak of bad luck don't have a male brigg in the tank.

Yeah, I figure either she's not a good match for the blue one (the only other adult), or the blue one's another female. I'm hoping that my adults breed with the new purples since I know my adults have genetics that can throw a wide variety of colors and I'd like to see some ivories and blues at some point.

Yeah, I'll def be getting more snails it looks like sometime soon, just wanna get the fry tank finished first. The tank will have to chill in the cats room(my cat has he own room AKA guest bath) until I can get some furniture moved around. I don't know, should be fun and I'm super excited. I've been working on the restoration of the metaframe tank between headaches. I'll be resealing the tank tonight providing I can kick my headache in time.