Why can't I breed snails?

Pufferfish22

What am I doing wrong? I cannot breed snails, everyone else seems over run with the little blighters but I cannot keep them!

I have a tank set up on a sunny window sill with live plants and do water changes with conditioner every other week but the snails all just die. I did originally have a mix of common pest pond snails (not MTS as these are too hard for my puffers teeth) and ramshorns, but I think the ramshorns were eating the pond snails so they became puffer tea!

What else should I be doing? Surely they don't need a filter do they?

If anyone could supply me with some snails so I can try again that would be just fab (I'm in the UK)

k19smith

Do they have algae or something to eat? No idea about the temp where you are is it getting to hot? I keep mine in a sand bottom tank with fish they eat the algae, uneaten food, bio film etc, it does not look like I have snails at all but if you stir up the sand you find tons. Snails like a well established tank.

DKRST

How are you feeding them? If you don't supplement, they will starve.

Hah - K19smith was faster on the return key than I was....

Strand

You aren't running a filter?


Feed them algae wafers/Veggie rounds.

Byron

In addition to what has been said, snails need mineral in the water for their shells, so the pond snails tend to do poorly in soft water. You may have hard or medium hard water where you are, but thought I'd mention this just in case. Malaysian livebearing snails do well in soft or hard water (for those reading, in case anyone wonders).

DKRST

+1 to Byron's comment, but also watch the tank temp. My MTS did not do well when I put some in an outdoor water feature-it was too warm apparently. Does your tank heat up in the window?

The MTS in my tanks have nicer shells in my tank that has a high pH. The ends of the shells don't turn white, but they do well in my other tanks also.

Jakiebabie

After my single mystery snail died after only two months I asked the LFS where I bought it... Can I get another? She/LFS said she has been unable to keep them alive too in our town's water. My PH sits at 8.2. Really hard water! Are you dealling with the same thing where you are? We're still trying to figure out why we can't keep them alive either.
(mine went into a Algae covered tank, I think it ate itself to death!! NO lack of food)

Pufferfish22

My water is really hard, PH around 8, and we're in southern England, so chances of the water getting too hot are minimal. I put live plants in the tank, I figured this would be their food, do I have this wrong and if so what should I feed them. I did put some algae wafers in but they didn't touch them and they just fouled the water.