# what are these?



## dp12345 (Sep 12, 2010)

I have some snails small ones that could have come with my riccia plant i bought form an auction.
It is small, somewhat circular.
Sorry no pic.

thank
dp


----------



## 3020 (Jun 14, 2010)

If its circular then I would say pond snails and if it has a spiral on the shell then its a ramhorn, but it would be pretty hard to tell without pics.


----------



## bae (May 11, 2007)

dp12345 said:


> I have some snails small ones that could have come with my riccia plant i bought form an auction.
> It is small, somewhat circular.
> Sorry no pic.
> 
> ...


New-hatched snails are hard to identify. When it gets a little bigger, and you can determine the shape of the shell, it gets easier.

If the shell is a flat spiral (flat from side to side), it's probably a ramshorn (Planorbis spp). These guys are harmless to plants and even helpful in cleaning up algae and detritus. If it has a long conical shape, it's probably a pond snail (Physa spp). These can be destructive to plants under some conditions.


----------



## dp12345 (Sep 12, 2010)

looks like i have ramshorn (Planorbis spp). 

thanks 
dp


----------



## AquaNekoMobile (Feb 26, 2010)

Ramhorns arn't bad. Depending on your tank size if you want to rid them later it may be an issue if you have say 40+gal. Something like 20gal you can keep on top of it by plucking them out. 

It took me about 3-4months to take out all the ramhorns in my 10gal. If any eggs are laid it would take a a few days to a week pending temp for them to hatch. Obviously you want to pluck the large ones first as they can lay the fertilized eggs by themselves being hermephrodites (dual sexed). All you need is one ramhorn about 1/3-1/2 size of your pinky nail and it can lay eggs. In my experience the smaller the snail the smaller the egg clutch. They seem to lay eggs like about once a week for me and each time it was about (a few adults) 7-10 per clutch so I was getting approx 30ish at a time. 

If you don't want them you can lure them with lettuce/cucumber/zucchini then pluck off the snails then return the bait. If they are about ball point pen tip sized you can finger squish them and let them fall back into the tank for your clean up crews supper. Just don't do it in front of kids. Trust me I know 'Nooooooooooooooooo don't kill the snails!! *sob sob*' then you get the monkey finger point and the 'Uncles killing the snails *sob sob*' LOL. Or do it whent he kids are not around and when they don't see the snails around tell them they took a vacation with Sponge Bob. LOL 

BTW the fully grown ramhorns are about the size of a thumbnail. You can't really finger squish those. Either get some assassin snails, a pufferfish, loaches, save them in another bucket to give away to others as fish food, or experiement with butter escargout (sp).


----------

