Molluscs

HomeAnglo Aquatic Plant  →  Molluscs

Molluscs

Molluscs – Simple Retailer Care Instructions

Ramshorn snails (Planorbarius corneus) and Trapdoor snails (Viviparus viviparus).
When displaying your snails, the importance of water temperature is paramount. Ensure they are kept out of direct sunlight and the water is cool.
These snails eat decayed plant and debris, as well as algae. Ramshorns tend to eat from the sides and Trapdoor snails from the bottom. They can be a good tank & pond cleaner.
Although most of them are extremely small, some may reach a size of two and a half centimetres (one inch). They lay eggs in globules, which tend to be brownish in colour. The globules contain about a dozen or so eggs, though it can vary. Some aquarium species will eat ramshorn snails. Ramshorn snails can sometimes become a nuisance in an aquarium, because they can breed so profusely.
You will always make their day if you feed them with spinach leaves, green lettuce leaves or slices of green zucchini.
If retailed in ‘’grab and go’’ packaging, try to stand the cups in deeper, cooler water, to ensure they do not overheat. Warm water will kill them. The labels on the cups will not come off when immersed.
An approximate stocking guide is to add 10 snails per m².

Painter mussel (Uniopictorum uniopictorum) and Swan mussel (Anodonta cygnea)

Feeding off pond debris and other small pond organisms, these native molluscs will help filter debris from your pond and clean the water as they do so. Suitable for medium to large ponds and lakes (or 1 mussel per m³ of water) as they can grow to 12cm by 5cm in size.

Mussel Care:

The mussels will arrive in damp newspaper, inspect them to make sure they have travelled well and their shells are intact and then simply place them gently into a deep tank, out of direct sunlight, helping to keep the water cool.
Mussels are filter feeders and ideally will not want to be stored in clean water, they would normally bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of a pond. They feed off plankton, pond debris and other microscopic organisms, by drawing water in through an incurrent syphon and expelling cleaned liquid through an excurrent syphon.
Put them in a deep vat, if possible with free-flowing water and maybe even some oxygenating bunches and fish. Not too many together, as they do like their own space, but short term, more crowded than the 1m³ they should have in a pond is not a problem.
Please note that all such mussels are sensitive to aquatic medications, in particular those which contain copper.