Chris Bosquez
New Member
Look for any pest snails! My pea puffer would be forever grateful and I so would I! I'll pay ya for them too! I'm in Kent, but work on Capital Hill. Let's meet up!
WTB Snails!
- Thread starter Chris Bosquez
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- pea puffer snails
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
Similair to Lloyd, I'm on the KP and would love to give you enough ramshorn and tadpole snails to start bucket colony but I don't think it's worth the drive. If you decide you're taking a trip to enjoy some of the fishing or something over this way just update the thread and I'll find a way to hand you off a bag.
The easiest way to grow enough snails to feed a pea puffer tank is put a few inches of sand in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket and mount a breeder/clamp lamp with a 60 watt incandescent or 40 watt CFL bulb pointing down. Start with 2-3 dozen ramshorn or tadpole snails and feed them fish flakes or pleco wafers, run the light 12-18 hours a day. It should keep the bucket warm and grow algae within a couple weeks of regular feedings. Change the half the water every few weeks and keep nitrogen totals under 40ppm. You can put this little ugly bucket in a closet or cupboard, it can be used to start/divide and grows out certain plants too once the sand is nice and dirty.
* If you use protein based fish food like flakes it tends to sheen the water, I would use an airstone in the bucket for circulation. Most of these snails are pretty ammonia tolerant and I wouldn't bother with a filter, nitrogen is nitrogen in this situation, and the sand bed will "cycle" quite a bit of it with just convection causing movement in the case of no Sheen/airstone.
The easiest way to grow enough snails to feed a pea puffer tank is put a few inches of sand in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket and mount a breeder/clamp lamp with a 60 watt incandescent or 40 watt CFL bulb pointing down. Start with 2-3 dozen ramshorn or tadpole snails and feed them fish flakes or pleco wafers, run the light 12-18 hours a day. It should keep the bucket warm and grow algae within a couple weeks of regular feedings. Change the half the water every few weeks and keep nitrogen totals under 40ppm. You can put this little ugly bucket in a closet or cupboard, it can be used to start/divide and grows out certain plants too once the sand is nice and dirty.
* If you use protein based fish food like flakes it tends to sheen the water, I would use an airstone in the bucket for circulation. Most of these snails are pretty ammonia tolerant and I wouldn't bother with a filter, nitrogen is nitrogen in this situation, and the sand bed will "cycle" quite a bit of it with just convection causing movement in the case of no Sheen/airstone.