Snail care and setup?

egyptiancrow

Arachnobaron
Joined
Apr 30, 2021
Messages
403
Howdy. i have a series of extremely tiny snails i keep in with my bess beetles. they are doin fine in there on the moss, bark, and occasional carrots. theyve been breeding and everything seems great. Ive grown kinda fond of em and i wanna try to keep some of the other snails that flood my garden and kill all my plants, lol

But theyre quite a lot larger, i was just wondering if i can just make another naturalistic setup with wood, moss, and dirt, and feed em similar things to my mini snails or if i need anything specific in my setup or for their needs. I know aquatic snails need calcium for their shells. Do i need to provide this as well? My minisnails shells have always looked fantastic and strong, so ive not worried about it. I crush up egg shells for my isopods all the time, i could add this for em if it would help?

Total novice who just left the snails in there cause they came in with my rotting wood.... I know basic things about snails but not much beyond that. Any help appreciated, i do want to give them a nice life and all their needs met.

Ps as far as species goes, ive ID'd 3 or 4 different ones all at the same pot, so sorry im not being specific, I dont know what ill find when i go out and pick some up, i havent done it yet as i have no setup for em. Theyre all native here so im not too worried about temp and humidity
 

Arthroverts

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
2,463
Agree with @SamanthaMarikian on this one, snails, especially larger species, need the calcium to maintain their shells. Cuttle bone works really well from what I understand.

Thanks,

Arthroverts
 

Farouche

Arachnosquire
Joined
Dec 23, 2021
Messages
55
When I was keeping larger snails from my garden, they really liked enough substrate depth to be able to lay eggs. I don't know what species of snails you plan on keeping but be warned that since any individual can reproduce with any other (they're hermaphroditic), your colony can become extremely large extremely quickly. Do you have a plan to dispose of them if it gets to that point? If you release them in your garden in large quantities, I would fear for your plants.
 

egyptiancrow

Arachnobaron
Joined
Apr 30, 2021
Messages
403
When I was keeping larger snails from my garden, they really liked enough substrate depth to be able to lay eggs. I don't know what species of snails you plan on keeping but be warned that since any individual can reproduce with any other (they're hermaphroditic), your colony can become extremely large extremely quickly. Do you have a plan to dispose of them if it gets to that point? If you release them in your garden in large quantities, I would fear for your plants.
oh dont worry, i knew of that much, i can feed the eggs to my isopods :)
 
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