# sulawesi tylomelania snail, shell damage



## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

so i bought a pair of these gorgeous looking snails, sulawesi tylomelania just today. i didn't notice one had a patch of it's shell missing, about 3mm by 3mm about half way down the length of it's shell. should I be worried? should I return him, or will it grow back? thoughts?

















that stuff on the bottom third of it's shell is not damage, but some calcium buildup or some such thing i'd imagine. also, as you can see, my corys are absolutely fascinated by them.

here's the other, healthy one.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

I get that damage to my MTS snails. From what I understand its a calcium def, thing.

My snails get it the worst when they are in my planted tanks where I have some pretty soft water. They do okay as long as the damage isnt too deep. 

Kat knows a heck of a lot more than me but you can also try applesnail.net too. They have a small section about the shell issues.

Fantastic little guys you got


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## juanitow (Jun 21, 2008)

I have 6 tylomelanias, the older 4 all had these abberations. I've never seen an adult tylomelania without them. In fact, the article on practical fish keeping that introduced them (I got it from Harold at Menagerie) mentioned that they all have damaged shells.

So no worries


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

well, that's good. i've definitely got some reading to do, but i'm sure the older/more damaged one isn't doing so hot. he hasn't moved today at all, pretty sure he's not eating. i'll see what i learn and let ya'll know.


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## juanitow (Jun 21, 2008)

They also take a while to acclimate to new environments. When I first brought them home, they spent a lot of time just in their shell. Then they started walking up the wall then falling. It took probably a week for them to start eating. Unfortunately the move was too much for one snail.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

yeah, the move might have been a little hard on this guy. he's doing as you describe, holing up in his shell. hopefully he comes out of it.

thanks for the great info juanitow, i appreciate it!


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## Katalyst (Jul 29, 2007)

I can't find any damage on my sulawesi's, I have a 55 gallon full of adults, juvies and hatchlings. I'll have to look through PF article, I can't recall them saying anything about shell damage, but admittedly I was dissapointed with the article & probally missed it.  A lot of shell damage is caused during shipping, snails are shipped in bags together they get jostled around and smack into one another causing shell damage. Because of this I wrap my snails individually when shipping them out, which is quite time consuming when several hundred are going out at once but it keeps the shells in tact. 

THF I have done several repairs on shell damage to haustrums, paladosas, cana's & a few other apple snail species but never on sulawesi's. Because they need to stay underwater to breathe it would be difficult to pull them out to do a patch job on. I'd leave it and see how he/she does. Sorry I missed this thread, I've been doing a whole work/travel in the past few weeks and am running ragged.


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