Malaysian Trumpets Snails

Malaysian trumpet snails (MTS, Melanoides tuberculata ) are good for keeping your sand turned over. MTS will eat also eat algae but not to the extent that they clean the glass (see left). If you MTS are all up near the water surface this may mean you have a water quality issue! So they can a useful water quality indicator in a cycling tank.

They reproduce at a moderate level, but don't normally become a problem unless you are over-feeding. You can often get a few for free from a fish store or thrown into an online order.

Paff the Blind Minnow

There is some tension between keeping fish as the most perfect specimens possible, and keeping pets to whom you have a lifelong commitment no matter what happens to them. Aquarists tend to straddle that divide. For example, I keep colored ramshorns snails and I like them well enough, but I do not know them as individuals and I ruthlessly "squish" excess snails to prevent over-populations. I feel no particular obligations to the individual snails and keep them mainly as specimens and "decorations".

And then there is Paff.



You can get a Fathead minnow like Paff at a local fish store for around ten cents, they are used mainly as feeders and bait fish. I got Paff as a pet, but she escaping the usual fate of a minnow did not put her on easy street. After a slight injury she developed a serious infection which caused swelling in one eye (an effect called "popeye" or "pop eye"). It didn't respond quickly to treatment (Maracyn and water changes) so I thought it would be humane to euthanize her. But she was hard to get out of the tank and thrashed around in the 1 gallon jar, demonstrating plenty of health vigor and quite the temper.

She recovered from that and continued as normal, beating up the other minnow and claiming the cosiest spot in the tank. Then the infection reoccurred, leaving her totally blind. I took her out again, but again she seemed otherwise healthy and now infection free.

So, Paff is not the prettiest or even the healthiest of fish, and she has at least one obvious defect (no eyes). However she has quite the bullish personality and a good body condition. I make sure to drop food near her and put a little fry food in the water from time to time and she seems to do very well. She seems to get around the tank well and rarely bumps into things, and she is still the boss of every fish in the tank, including the much larger male Fathead (called "Bubba").

So, not a specimen, but definitely on of my favorite pets.

Fry Watch

10/20/09
I have at least six new fry. The are either black bar endlers or gambusia, only time will tell.

11/2/09
After vanishing for most of the intervening period, 2 of the fry reappeared near the water surface yesterday. This pattern of behavior and their evolving appearance suggests that they are gambusia. Currently they have vanished again.

11/4/09
I saw three fry yesterday, but could only find this one today. Definitely looking like a gambusia, no signed of spotting so they are either female or not melanistic.

11/28/09
The fry are large enough to distinguish make and female based on fin shape. So far they all seem to be standard gambusia. I am separating males and females now to prevent over-population.

From the Mailbag

Actually, there is no mailbag--but feel free to send me an email. There are the Google keywords people are using to find this blog, and some of them look like questions. So, in an effort to be helpful, here goes:

euthanasia snails ... euthanasia aquatic snails ... killing water snail humanely
If you want to humanely kill a snail the options are unfortunately limited. I am not aware of a humane chemical method. Physical methods are unpleasant but have the ability to be humane (that is, instantaneous). You take a very strong plastic bag, insert the snail, crush completely flat with a heavy flat object, dispose. I would not recommend freezing or any form of live disposal (flushing etc).

tums in fish tanks ... tums for snail ... how to give snail calcium ... snails calcium tums
See: Providing calcium to snails

shrimp in a three gallon ... under 1 gallon, shrimp tank ... SHRIMP IN A 5 GALLON TANK ... shrimp 1 gallon ... 1 gallon tank how many shrimps
I have kept dwarf shrimp in a one gallon tanks, but they never seemed to thrive so I gave up on it. I have formed the impression that even dwarf shrimp really need at least 2 gallons.

betta with rcs shrimp ... betta splendens eat cherry shrimp ... betta with cherry shrimp
It may work, it may not. I would suggest providing plenty of hiding areas, introducing the shrimp after dark, and having a Plan B. Bettas have trouble eating a shrimp, but they will hunt and harass them and damage them until they die.

yellow shrimp hybrid cherry
Yellow and cherry shrimp offspring are a brown "wild type" shrimp.

Alby the Color-Changing Ramshorn Snail

This is my latest arrival, Alby the ramshorn snail. I am not sure that he is actually a genetic albino, but he does have a translucent shell and a foot without red or pink color. Presumably this means he does not have normal haemoglobin which makes it surprising that he has grown to adult size. I hope he settles in well.

Alby arose spontaneously in a population of red ramshorns. The picture below was provided by the gotglock at Aquaria Central.

If you have an albino ramshorn or know someone who does, please drop me a line at psycheskinner at gmail.com and I will add them to this page. I am especially interested to know if anyone has successfully bred them.

See also:
Colombian Ramshorn Snails (includes a picture of an albino common ramshorn)


10/24/09
After a few days Alby started to develop a much pinker body color, to the extent that I thought he might transform into a normal "pink" ramshorn, This was quite a surprise as research has shown that pink ramshorn snails do not change their haemoglobin levels in response to water oxygen levels.

Coloring can change between generations with newly hatched snails in poorly-oxygenated water having a bright red color. But individuals seem to be born with a level of coloration that stay with them throughout life. Other than Alby, that is.




11/2/09
Alby has returned the his original yellow coloration. Weird.