Algae Eaters eat Algae?

downerbeautiful

You're more likely to have your fish out of water than your snail. Mystery snails are cool in that, like African Dwarf Frogs and fish, they cannot thrive outside of water. When they hit the water line in your tank they do one of two things:
A. They change course and travel back down the tank walls
or
B. They continue crawling up, get about 2mm aboce the water line, retract into their shells, and fall to the floor

Your snail won't escape! You're more likely to have a fish out of water than a Mystery Snail outside the tank, so don't worry. Many would argue that there are easier pets (snakes, spiders, et al) but the Mystery Snails is one of the easiest animals to care for.

Also he won't beat up your fish.

MetalArm3

Thanks downer!

Ill have to pick one up next time im at Petsmart

MetalArm3

downerbeautiful

Oh! And since this is a rookie mistake (I've made it a dozen times), I'll give you a heads up. You'll know your snails dead when your tank smells terrible and the hood to the opening of the shell relaxes. When my snails were new, they were shy and would curl up tight in their shells, sometimes for hours! I thought I killed them, but they were just startled. Once they're used to their environment, they won't shut themselves in (unless they feel threatened). It's no big deal; don't panic if he doesn't move for a few hours, ha ha!

MetalArm3

Ahaha, I can see that being an easy mistake.
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Jadenlea

If you go to aquabid you can get the mystery snails in almost any color. gold, cream, blue, purple, magenta, pink. I keep meaning to order myself a purple one!

If you are not familiar with Aquabid it can look confusing at first. Type Mystery snail in search and that will help you get past all the text. It is pretty much ebay for fish.

BobtheSnail

The Petsmart I went to had gold, black, white, and I think blue snails. Mine never goes above the water line; just sometimes sits there for a while and then he'll go the other way. His favorite place seems to be right behind the filter...

Also, Bob (my snail) has floated to the top of the tank a couple of times. So if yours does that, don't worry. They sometimes get air bubbles trapped in their shells. I would've left him, but the filter kept pushing him down into the water and then he was running into the fish!!! So I just took a plastic cup and trapped him in it, and when he was grounded again I let him out :)

I was worried he was dead, though. I put him in a cup with warmer water to see if he would come out and he did. That usually works, so if you're ever in doubt, try that. Downerbeautiful is right; if your snail dies you will know... it smells awful!!! Yuck...

MetalArm3

Thank you for all the input everyone! I will be buying my mystery snail this Friday and then monitor it over the weekend. I checked out aquabid, very interesting site (like eBay) but will be going to Petsmart to make this purchase . I hope they have awesome colors at mine.

Metal

downerbeautiful

As a heads up on colors:

Black - The original; looks good, but depending on your background and substrate, they can be hard to find (I have black gravel and a black background so I never find mine)

Gold - Most popular; super vibrant coloring; might not get as big as the black one

Blue - almost grey, not a heavily saturate blue color; also might not get as big

Ivory - my LPSs (any and all of them) don't carry the ivory, so I haven't seen it

MetalArm3

Thanks for the heads up! I have multicolor brown gravel with a blue background with green plants on it. By any chance would the yellow color illuminate or glow under my moonlights like my yellow plant?
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downerbeautiful

I don't recall my snail being fluorescent under moonlights like my orange and yellow plants are, but I never really looked to see if he was. I can check tonight, though, to see if he glows.