# Introducing wild snails / plants



## Tamakun (Mar 30, 2008)

Hi everyone;

I have a question to ask. This past weekend, I was out at my parents' cottage in Nippissing, and I saw some reeds and snails in a small pond which I thought would be a wicked addition to my tank.

Now, I'm aware that introducing wild snails and plants is extremely hazardous to the aquarium due to any odd critters and parasites that come along, and I've heard of methods to "clean" plants and snails. I wanted to know if anyone can ID this snail (I also have another snail, which I can get a picture later) and let me know if this snail is something I should or shouldn't introduce to my tank. (I have a Zebra Nerite snail in my tank, and several plants.)

Obviously I'm wanting to approach this with extreme caution, so as it stands the two snails and plants are in a smaller tank until they are identified. If they're not good tankmates, I'll have my parents return them to their original home this week (as I'm also aware about not introducing foreign critters to water systems).

I know this picture isn't very good - I'll try to get a better picture tomorrow. It is a dark-brown shell with transparent circular light-brown spots. The other snail is a fingernail-sized ramshorn. The plants are some simple reeds which I'm not even certain if they will survive underwater (and these ones were floating in the water - the other reeds were so firmly planted in rock I couldn't remove them, and decided against removing them).

Thanks for your words in advance!


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

that looks like a pond snail... like the ones we'd normally get off plants. 

Watch out with plants from the lakes. I am not sure if the zebra mussel plight is that way yet, but they will be found attached to roots and things. I added wild val to my tank. I soaked the plants in bleach, then soaked in brackish water over night and soaked in bleach again. Literally tortured the hell out of the plant. I carefully cleaned between the leaves, looked over the roots very carefully. Isolated for a bit and then planted. So far the wild val is perking up. it's taken several weeks mind you. I would definately play with caution.

Snails need to be isolated for a good few months I would recon. They have parasites that need to go between snails and a host to complete its life cycle. Put a break in that life cycle and you should find the parasites can't survive. 

On the flipside, if you are interested in keeping your pond plants and snails together.... is setting them up in their own tank and having a peice of Nippissing at home. I actually dug up a couple freshwater mussels (not zebra) in a gallon jar several years ago. It was a highschool "ecosystem" that contained snails, and some wild plants and much algae. thrived for ages.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I agree with sunstar on the id. Looks like a physa, better known as pond snails.

As sunstar said, be very very cautious of snails, as they can be intermediate hosts for a variety of parasites. If you want pond snails, I'm sure one of us could gladly send you aquarium "safe" (big quotations here) physa snails. If you're set on the one you've got, I'd recommend dosing it with prazipro as well as levamisole, ad pretty much any other antithelmintic (anti-worm/parasite) agent you can get before introduction into an aquarium.

As for the plant, you can try qt, with the same rounds of anti-parasite meds, or try potassium permanganate (if you can get any) to sterilze the plant. PP works by binding all the available oxygen and suffocating organisms attached to plants, etc, so it will probably get most things on the plant without being as harmful as bleach.


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