Apple snails-The Blue Mystery Snail

Apple snails are quite common in the freshwater. Available in different colors and most commonly blue, these are also called “Blue Mystery Snail”. Due to their easy availability, you will find them in most of the stores and it is absolutely easy to care for them. Apple snails are known for both positive and negative traits.

The advantages of happing apple snails are that these are available in variety of color patters and thus seem incredible. They consume algae and thus help in maintaining the quality of the water. However they have a negative trait and that is, these are voracious eaters. They eat day and night and can also consume other plants or even sponge filters. Because of their appetite, they can become quite large in size. They can reach sizes of up to 6 inches.

You would love to keep the apple snails as they are available in amazing colors and shell patterns such as brown, tan, white or yellow and other stunning colors like blue, purple, pink, and jade, with or without banding on their shells. Apple snails with different contrasts such as purple bodies and yellow and white shells are quite popular among the people. They come under a number of names such as golden apple snail, ivory snail, blue mystery snail, golden Mystery snail and others.

In case algae are not available in the aquarium, they usually turn to other foodstuff. They also consume vegetables, plants, fish foods, brine shrimp, insects and dead fish or any other decaying matter. If your aquarium has a number of live plants, then you must provide these with algae wafers, vegetable based sinking pellets or pieces of vegetables so that they feed on these rather than the plants present in the aquarium.

The Apple snails breed by laying eggs at the top of the tank, mainly above the water line. These lay numerous eggs at a time and you may find it difficult to control their population by simply removing them since there is always a possibility that you will miss out these. Besides, apple snails may close up or remain semi-closed for a number of days; this indicates that they might be required to move to a different tank. These have a tendency to pollute their surroundings at a very fast rate. As such these organic wastes will restrict their growth and even lead to their death. They prefer to live in harder water.

Clown loaches and cichlids are the biggest enemies of the apple snails. Birds and raccoons also consider apple snails as their favorite foods. So you should keep them away. They become quite active at night but during the day they generally move to a darker area. At night the apple snails involve themselves in activities like feeding, mating and laying eggs.

You would love to keep the apple snails in your aquarium as they can serve as very interesting companions. So research and go to your nearest store and you would get plenty of beautiful apple snails.