Hello?

[molluscsandmonsters]

Is anyone still here? Looks like the most recent post was made in 2012. I hope joining and posting here isn't a faux pas like thread necromancy on forums.

Anyway, I have a planted 30 gallon full of ramshorns and nothing else at the moment, which is a recent upgrade from a planted 2.5 gallon full of ramshorns and nothing else, because I'm a dork who likes snails. I used to keep cory cats, bettas, and goldfish, in addition to many other snails, and I may yet do so again. (Aside from the goldfish. I am done with goldfish. They're wonderful fish, but I no longer have the space or the energy.) Hi.

Comments

[krait]

Hi!

I totally forgot I had this comm on my reading list, but it's good to see a post pop up! (And your username is great - very apropos!)

I miss having bettas, but currently have enough pets to keep me busy without cleaning tanks and hauling water. Maybe when the youngest cat is older and less curious, I'll think about adding a fish to the house again. :D

[molluscsandmonsters]

Hi, nice to meet you!

Fun to look at other peoples' aquatic pets in the meantime, right? What sorts of bettas did you use to have? I mostly adopted from people who couldn't keep theirs, so I had a lot of typical blue and red veiltails, but those are still cool fish. I had a friend in college who was a breeder though, and she had all kinds of fancy bettas.

[krait]

Definitely! I can enjoy other people's fish and dream about having more someday.

I had a crowntail betta once, and one female, but mostly I had plain old veiltails, usually blue. (If I ever get fabulously wealthy, I'd set myself up as a betta breeder producing blue-and-teal-with-black-heads bettas, because it's my absolute favourite combo. I always try to pick out the bluest ones with the least red in the fins and the darkest faces!)

That doesn't stop me from going on AquaBid and browsing fantastic fancy bettas I'll never own, though. :D (Check this guy out! And this one! Or this fellow!)

[molluscsandmonsters]

oooo, those are some excellent bettas. My favorite patterns are probably... deep or steel blue with black heads, teal dragonscales with red or black fins, and koi patterns, and I like the short tails on plakats (and female bettas). Much to my former betta breeding friend's chagrin, I'm also genuinely a fan of blue with flashes of red on the fins. I don't think there are any betta patterns I dislike, to be honest.

[codyne]

Hi! I totally forgot about this comm! I love watery pets but haven't had any of my own since my house burned down in 2011 and I lost my 150-gal tank with two giant goldfish. Before I got into goldfish, I used to keep lots of little tropicals like tetras and danios and cory cats. Would love to have fish again some day. I'm planning on moving sometime next year and will probably set up a tank in my new place.

I had to look up ramshorn snails to see what they look like. Cool snails! I've never kept aquarium snails on purpose but have had hitchhikers come in on plants. They were always fun to have.

[molluscsandmonsters]

Oh jeez, that sounds like a nightmare. I'm sorry. Are you from California? I know a couple people from California whose wildfire stories are terrifying.

Tetras and danios are nice, but I LOVE cory cats. They're built like little tanks, but they're chill and sociable, which is a great combination. They come in so many different patterns too! I haven't kept any in a long time though, because the way I lost my last ones was kinda rough (though definitely not as rough as your whole house burning down). There was some kind of metal poisoning issue with our tap water, the kind of thing that makes humans sick too, and we didn't find out until the damage was done.

That said, I did use sand for the snail tank with the thought that I might like to have cories again some time.

And yeah, if you can't tell from the name and icon, I love snails. It's just the rams for now, but come spring, depending on my financial situation, I'd like to add a mystery snail or two (P. diffusa, sometimes also ID'd as P. bridgesii) and, maybe, if I'm lucky enough to find a local breeder, one of the Sulawesi rabbit snails (Tylomelania spp). I also have a land snail! It's a grove snail, Cepaea sp. (probably nemoralis?). Their name is Pocket. But I like the aquatic snails best. Tragically a lot of my favorite snails are intertidal species, which makes them poor choices for pets...

[codyne]

Yes, I'm in California. We've had a couple of bad wildfires here where I live. My place survived the first one but the second one got it. Fortunately we had enough time to evacuate, and I got myself and my mom and kitties out safely, but sadly there was no way to evacuate the fish. When I got back the place was burned to the ground. All that was left of the fish tank was a pile of the gravel. I miss my big goldies but having a tank that big was a lot of work. I couldn't keep tropicals here, though -- I've got solar electricity and it can't handle keeping a tank heater running overnight. The good thing about goldfish was that they didn't need a heated tank, and the well water was good pH for them.

I love cories, too. I tried adding them to my goldfish tank but they never survived for long, so I gave up trying. I don't know what the problem was, maybe it was just too cold for them, although I kept the room heated so it didn't get really cold.

Mystery snails are cool, I've thought about getting one or two of them for a tank some day. We'll see what happens after I move. I will have to see whether there are any fish stores in the area and what's available.

Sorry about losing your cories -- that's the thing about having fish, you are responsible for their total environment, and so many things can go wrong that you can't even see until it's too late. It can be very discouraging sometimes. I remember when I first got my goldfish -- they were just those little ten-cent feeder fish, I had no idea they were going to grow up to be over a foot long! I started them in a 10-gallon, then moved up to 25 gallon, then 80, then finally to 150 when I moved here. When they were in the 25-gallon, the water was nice and clear and I changed it often and thought everything was fine... until I thought to test the ammonia level one day and it was at pretty much lethal levels. So I went and bought the 80-gallon tank. Even that was hard to keep the pH from dropping, although I was doing weekly water changes. My apartment building had a water softener, so the water came out neutral but started to drop almost immediately. So I decided to go with a 150-gallon tank when I moved.

How do you keep your land snail? Do you have a terrarium for it? That sounds interesting, I'm not sure I've heard about anyone keeping land snails for pets.

[molluscsandmonsters]

Oh, yeah, don't put cories in a goldfish tank. Cories are tropical, and also a goldfish will try to eat anything that looks like it might fit in their mouth.

Keeping aquatic pets is kind of like having a whole tiny ecosystem as a pet. That's one of the coolest and most rewarding things about it, but it's also a little terrifying sometimes. A dog is dependent on you for food, shelter, and socialization, but typically not breathable air. All you can do is do the research and try your best to provide a good home.

And yeah, they do have a terrarium, but they need an upgrade actually. I did have them in a reasonably nice little setup in an old minibow, but there wasn't a good way to secure the lid properly and they actually escaped for a while. Land snails are stronger than you'd think! So now I have them in a little critter keeper, and it's... fine? But it'd be better to have something bigger, with more stuff to climb on or hide under, and maybe some live plants. Right now I have to change the soil more frequently because of the size of the container, and while grove snails are not... the most neurologically advanced of pets, they do roam around a fair amount in the wild and prefer to burrow under things or stick on trees when resting/hibernating/aestivating, so a larger, more decorated container would probably be healthier for them.