What snails are these?

[Baccus]

I had decided to clean my goldfish pond in readiness for summer and happened to find first one stripey snail and then more. I am guessing they are from one of my local creeks and ended up in the pond when I took excess tank plants down for the goldfish to demolish. If these are the same type of snail that I have in my tanks, the ones in my tanks are just black with no stripes. Could these guys just be showing stress/ growth bars or have I stumbled across a snail that people are going to want in their tanks? The pond is underneath a large Ice cream bean tree and it gets a lot of leaf litter (along with twigs and fruit) off the tree. Ice cream beans are legumes so nitrogen fixing (not sure if that would have any bearing on the snails shells the nitrogen from the tree), it also collects leaves from a neighbors silky oak and leaves from one of my Tea trees. So the water would be pretty acidic I am guessing. The pond gets filled/ topped up with town water (which I have heard can be hard water) and whenever it does manage to rain here. I am tempted to put these back into one of my tanks that doesn't already have similar snails to see if they keep their pretty stripes. But I sort of want to keep my snail options open for some notopala species of snail.

[Heavyd]

I don't know what they are, but they look nice.

[fishmosy]

Look like a striped variation on a common pond snail, which have a reputation for eating plants and breeding prolifically, to the point of outbreaks.

[Baccus]

My goldfish usually eat any snails they find that's why in the pond so far I have only found 2 rams horns and this little collection of snails. Oh and one MTS that was up the wall of the pond. The plants in the pond are a Lily, java moss, elodea, duckweed, and hygo(?) also some parrots feather. basically anything extra I have out of my tanks gets dumped in the pond. The main pond snails I know of are often called bladder snails and they are usually much smaller than these snails, also they tend to have spots, well the ones I have seen do. These snails are between 1-1.5cm in size, they also look a different in the eye stalk department to the other creek snails I thought they might be descendants of. I will try to get some better shots of them later showing off their almost orange stripes.

[fishmosy]

I'll post some pics of the plain coloured ones that look similar to yours. they infested a couple of my tanks until I fought them off in all but one. That fight is still ongoing.

If you can get them before they reach adulthood you can stop them breeding. They also seem to need two adults to breed (not self fertilsing).

[Baccus]

My tanks are usually overrun by MTS, the ramshorns I beat into submission by my Pakastani and dwarf chain loaches. Sadly the fight is still on going with the MTS . Here are some other pics of these guys. The last picture is of one of the similar snails that is in my endler tank with ramshorns, MTS, and nerites.

[Wraithie]

Whatever they are, the look cool :)

[KillieOrCory]

They look like regular pond snails that have grown in water parameters that changed over time. Those light rings (they are parallel to the growth line) might be the result of chances in the water chemistry; water change/rain, excess food etc.

That's my theory anyway! I agree they look cool:encouragement:

[Baccus]

One of the things that is throwing me about them, is that the ones in the tank have much blunter tail/ rear ends, while the ones in the pond are longer and thiner. Also their bodies are blacker/ darker. Beats me what they are but I think the stripes make them appealing.

[redeye]

Your snails are very striking Baccus......are they a lot bigger than the ones that infests every ones tanks?

[Baccus]

I wouldn't call them hugely bigger, I have some real monster ramshorns but they certainly are double the size of the standard bladder snail. It would be interesting to see how these would do in your super soft water, see if their shells change again.

[fishmosy]

I wonder if they are plant eaters like the 'bladder' snails?

[mr_c265]

Pond snails generally do not eat plants. Blonde snails do eat plants. I believe bladder snails are pond snails. Blonde snails look very similar to pond and bladder snails.

I have another species of snail that i got locally that is similar, yet elongated and darker, i don't think it eats plant tissue but i'm not quite sure yet.

[fishmosy]

The pond snails I have are plant eaters. They even chew on my frogbit when they can reach it. I'll post pics very soon.

[mr_c265]

Here is a blond snail, these apparently eat plants (photo is Dave's, not mine)

This is one of my Pond Snails, it doesn't eat plants.

Note the direction of the spiral.

Unfortunately this snail was under 5mm long, so it was hard to get a photo. I have big ones downstairs, just can't be bothered to treck it down.

[fishmosy]

Your pond snail looks the same as the ones infesting my tanks. As previously stated they do eat my plants, maybe because I feed that tank very little.

[mr_c265]

Your pond snail looks the same as the ones infesting my tanks. As previously stated they do eat my plants' date=' maybe because I feed that tank very little.[/quote']

Interesting!

Tomorrow i'll go find the other species i have for comparison!

[northboy]

Pretty sure they are a Austropeplea species of sorts, if you really want to know send some to the QLD Museum for ID, they are nice anyway and if they don't eat plants even better.

Bob

[mr_c265]

Austropeplea tend to have right sided openings and counter clockwise shells. The ones i have and i suspect these are are Physella Acuta, they tend to be left side openings and clockwise.

[fishmosy]

Austropeplea tend to have right sided openings and counter clockwise shells. The ones i have and i suspect these are are Physella Acuta' date=' they tend to be left side openings and clockwise.[/quote']

Double checked my facts. acuta are found in Aus. but were introduced from Europe or Nth America.

[northboy]

?? did not know those 2 facts so I will leave it to you 2 to nock heads LOL

Bob