Golden Apple Snails

Hi all,

I've been wanting to get some snails for a while now and after doing a bit of searching I found these Golden Apple Snails which seem to be the bigger ones.

I made sure that my axolotls could never fit them in their mouths, but do snails ever harm axolotls in any way?

Axies have a large gape and could suprise you with the things they can swallow. Snails of certain sizes can cause this potential problem with impaction with axies.

Indirectly, snails can also carry parasites. They also breed readily and can be hard to completely rid them once they establish themselves.

Some snails can also cause problems with axie skin by 'sucking' on them.

On the reverse of this, I have had an apple snail in with my adult female for a year with no problem. I'm not saying there never will be a problem, that is just my experience so far.

I had Golden Apple Snails for about a year, too. Usually axolotls leave them alone, but sometimes a clever axolotl will figure out how to suck the snail out of its shell. After that, no snail is safe.

The real trouble with apple snails is that they are tropical and prefer temps above 18°, preferably above 20°C. This means that although your snails may grow for the first year, one year is about their life exectancy in a cold tank - instead of the usual four years they are supposed to live.

I now have ramshorn snails and bladder snails - they are much smaller and make a great treat for the axolotl, and breed quite readily. That also means that you can often get them for free (particularly bladder snails) from pet shops or fish keepers, who see them more as a plague.

Hope this helps,

-Eva

Ah yeah, I only got 2 of them and I made sure they were huge so there was no way they could be swallowed hhaha

I think I'm going to go get some of them ramshorn snails now that I know its safe for them to eat!

I have personally witnessed apple snails feeding on the fillembrials of axolotls. This was one of many reasons I became an avid anti-snail person. I feel any perceived benefits of having them are far outweighed by the risks.