General information- This snail is amphibious. While there is a sufficient level of dissolved oxygen in the water, they will hardly leave the water and will breathe by their gills. If the level of dissolved oxygen gets to low, the snails will go up to the surface and breathe with their lung (mostly by using its siphon, a tube that it extracts to the water surface). While filling their lung with air, the snails extract and contract their body, so that the pressure differences cause their lung to deplete and refill. These snails have the ability to cruse away from the aquarium, so a cover glass is a necessity, as they won't survive longer than a couple of days in dry conditions. These snails have a tendency to float around the water surface, "playing dead"- do not worry, they are not. The best way to tell your snail is dead is if it doesn't contract when you touch it or if the 1 / 5
operculum (shell cover) is missing (mostly at that time, the shell will also be empty). Due to their liking of plant matter as food, most people recommend not to keep them in planted aquariums. On the other hand, these snails show that if well fed, they can be kept in planted aquaria almost without a problem (they have a tendency to eat Nym phaea sp. no matter how much you feed them). More and more these days, the Apple-Snails are getting quite popular as roommates for Siamese-Fighters and other fish housed in vases and jars, as they clean them from algae, eat excessive food and make the vase/jar easier to clean by siphoning the dirt on the bottom. This species has several color forms- from the Brown (Wild Type), through Striped-Brown to Yellow/Golden (Cultivated). It seems the Yellow/Golden variants are more popular and common in the trade. 2 / 5
Common Name- Golden Apple Snail, Channeled Apple Snail Scientific Name- Pomacea canaliculata Family- Ampullariidae Origin- Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. Invasive species in Tropical-Asia and USA. Size- Up to 10cm (4 inches) in diameter First discovered- Lamarck, 1819 Nutrition- Mainly plant-matter, in the aquarium will eat also uneaten fish foods and meaty foods such as dead fish corpses. Needs Calcium additions to its diet! Behavior- Calm, Non-aggressive Maintenance and care- This species requires an aquarium with slow water flow and good 3 / 5
biological filtration, due to its tendency to pollute water quickly. It likes lots of vegetation, so water plants are essential. As this snail is fast growing, it needs calcium rich water, so it can grow with a healthy shell- the calcium is used as calcium-carbonate to create the shell, lack of calcium will cause the shell to be thinner and more susceptible to breaking and eventually, the snail will die. Water Parameters- Temperature should be in range of 20-28 o C (68-82.4 o F/293-301 o K). PH should be in range of 6.5-7.5, best at 7. Water hardness (GH and KH) isn't significant. Water should contain NO HEAVY METALS, as they are lethal to the snails!!! Breeding- This species, unlike most snails known to common people, is not androgynous but gonochoristic, It means it has males and female! females are mostly larger while males have a wider aperture (shell opening). There are more ways to determine the snail's sex, not all of them are 100% sure. 4 / 5
At a temperature of 25 o C (77 o F/298 o K), breeding is at maximum rate. The female lays its eggs above the water surface at a clutch containing about 200-600 eggs. These eggs will hatch within about 2-3 weeks, depending on temperature an humidity of the air (the air above the water surface should have high humidity)- thus, a glass cover on the tank is essential (water level should be about 5-7.5cm/2-3inch below the glass cover). The young snails are about 2.5mm (0.09inch) after hatching and immediately start eating; they will also need a constant supply of calcium (both in water and by food). Keeping the young snails with the adults might become a problem after a while, due to competition over food and calcium, so it is advisable to grow them separately. The young snails get to sexual maturity at the size of about 2.5cm (1inch). 5 / 5