# Trapdoor snails



## whytebred (May 10, 2012)

I have about 300 TINY trapdoor snails, my original two are about two years old and about 3 inches in length by 1.5 inches in girth :S

The first batch of offspring started as three in an old betta tank, and once i moved them into a 65 gallon aquarium, they wouldn't stop reproducing. I now have two with my dwarf frogs, about thirty with my gouramis, and another 200-300 1 milimetre- about a centimetre length offspring in a five gallon tank. There is now about six generations of snails, and you can see the difference in size with each one of them. The original parents are very obviously different coloured, as their shells are white striped between the green on their shells. 

Now for my question:

I bought the original two about 2 years ago, and their colour hasn't changed. They've always had white on their shells and have clearly grown an inch and a half since getting them. The first generation offspring just grew to the size of the parents when i got them, but i'm just seeing slight grey lines in their shells forming. I sold about 20-30 of them, and all the owners told me that the week after buying them, they turned white striped like the parents. I've never had a problem raising these easy-to-breed snails, and I'm wondering if their colouring differs through generation, or if the colour has to do with over crowding.. any thoughts?


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## whytebred (May 10, 2012)

oops. for anyone wondering why my grammar and sentence structure is so bad its because its 6:30 AM and ive been up all night. -_-


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I can relate to that.. I often go short of a night's sleep. How long does it take for a trapdoor snail to reach maturity, or breeding age ?

I wouldn't mind having some.. I like snails.. I feed my mysteries and nerites and they just clean the plants, rather than eating them, as well as keeping algae under control on the tank walls.. Actually I wish they'd leave some on the tank walls for the shrimp. But you can't have everything.

I'd never heard of these guys before, so I went and looked them up a bit. One site, which you can find here -

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=1075+1077&pcatid=1077

said that they can vary widely in colour but that brown with grey stripes is pretty typical. Another couple of sites that were selling them for ponds spoke of Black Trapdoors as well. Maybe yours are just changing with age, or perhaps different conditions or feeding changes their appearance ? Only guessing, as I've never kept these. But I'd like to !


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## whytebred (May 10, 2012)

It can be anywhere between one and two years before the snails are supposed to reach sexual maturity, i'm only assuming i wasn't told wrong here because my two year old snails that were always in the dwarf frog tank just started breeding. 

GET THESE-->The black mystery snails are GORGEOUS, they have extra long shells and their bodies are brightly coloured.. i would definitely reccomend those ones just on looks alone! I don't think trapdoors eat plants, only algae so its a bonus for pond owners. 

I think you're right about the colour, it must've been the condition in the tank the original two at big al's were raised in. All other pictures of these specific trapdoors look identical to their noted description and pictures ive looked up, and all the babies are the same colours at the same sizes as their "sibblings". I did a mid week strip test (know theyre not reliable, but dont wanna waste a good kit on a surprise test) and the levels are all normal, pH is perfect! it was probably a less healthy (or much more mature) shipment of snails.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I've sent you a PM..


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I often wonder about what we feed our critters. Right now I have Whisker shrimp. Sold by the name Blue Claw Whisker Shrimp... and under the light in the LFS, they did look faintly blue. But now they're here, no blue in sight. In fact, they are slowly getting a distinctly orange cast to their shells. They are like Ghost shrimp, see through, but not white looking. Transparent and honestly, colourless until recently when I noticed the orange tint showing up on their backs. Shed shells show the orange tint clearly too. I think it is either food or maturity, or both. If that can happen to shrimp, why not to snails too ? They make their shells out of what they eat, so if they've been eating something with a pigment in it, it might affect shell colour.

I thought those Black Trapdoors were quite awesome too. But I am not paying to import from the US.. Maybe they'll show up here one day.


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## whytebred (May 10, 2012)

sorry about that, just got your PM.. i've been having internet troubles since the power went out in my area the other day


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## whytebred (May 10, 2012)

Big Al's in whitby got an accidental shipment of them with apple snails, they just went on sale about last week or so. You could always call them and ask, but they also told me they could have been a misidentified shipment. They're healthy looking, I just went there yesterday to get some feeder fish for my turtles and took a peak at them.. the label in store actually had a question mark beside the specific name, so they definitely got lucky and got an accidental shipment on these guys!


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