r/AquaticSnails

This is the face of a deranged snex and napping beast who was gently, but voraciously poked and stroked in the butt and snenis spot in order to free the lady he was suctioned to from his lust.

He sat in the floating box of shame for a bit before his new owner came to take him to his new massive and luxurious home. Sadly, my female mysteries will not be there, so he must be going to hell.

Poor little shit.

FINALLY rehomed him! I love him, but holy crap I'm sick of his smug smut. He's gone off to an experienced fishkeeper with a massive tank for him to be in AWAY from Shiny Snom and Snom.

I think I won the lottery when I accidentally bought a couple of Giant Colombian Ramshorn snails along with some mystery snails from Big Al’s over a year ago.

Now I have around 60 of them spread across my six aquariums, and honestly, they have become some of the most useful inhabitants of my tanks.

The first thing I noticed was how good they are at cleaning. Mine eat beaded algae, Cladophora green algae, and, most importantly, duckweed (Lemna minor).

I had been fighting duckweed for more than two years. It became so bad that a thick layer completely covered the surface and blocked the light from reaching the plants underneath. I could remove handfuls of it and it would just come back.

These snails have done an incredible job clearing it.

But the biggest surprise was what they did to my Great Ramshorn snail population.

At one point, I had an unbelievable infestation. I tried trapping them, removing them by hand, crushing them and feeding them to my fish—nothing really controlled them. They reproduced so quickly that at one point I literally had a layer of small ramshorns about half an inch thick covering parts of the bottom.

Then I noticed the Giant Colombian Ramshorns eating their egg clusters.

Since having them, my Great Ramshorn population has been dramatically reduced.

Now, before someone says, “But Colombian Ramshorns eat plants!” — yes, they can.

I have healthy, heavily planted tanks, and in my experience they will definitely eat very soft plants such as duckweed and Ambulia. Mine will occasionally take a bite out of Ludwigia or Bacopa as well.

But I have never seen them seriously damage tougher plants such as hornwort, Jungle Vallisneria, Amazon swords, Anubias or Java fern. They also seem completely uninterested in my mosses and Subwassertang.

When they are well fed, mine generally leave healthy plants alone or cause very little damage.

I also wonder whether some of their bad reputation comes from people seeing snails eating a plant that was already melting, damaged or dying and assuming the snail caused the damage.

There may even be a biological reason for this. Healthy plants can produce defensive chemical compounds, including allelochemicals, while damaged or decaying plant tissue may be much more attractive and easier for a snail to eat. I don't know whether this specifically explains the behaviour of Giant Colombian Ramshorns, but I think it would be interesting to investigate.

Another reason I love Giant Colombian Ramshorns is that I prefer them to Assassin snails for controlling pest snails in my planted community tanks.

Assassin snails are predators. People commonly buy them specifically to hunt pest snails, but there are also reports from aquarists of Assassin snails attacking shrimp and other small or vulnerable aquarium inhabitants. Whether that happens regularly or only under certain circumstances is debatable, but it's something I personally don't want to worry about in tanks containing shrimp and baby fish.

My Giant Colombian Ramshorns are different. I have never seen them hunting my shrimp or baby fish. Instead, they help control my pest-snail population by eating their egg clusters.

That makes them particularly useful to me.

Unlike the small pest ramshorns, mine don't seem to explode in population either. Their egg clusters are large and easy to spot and remove if necessary. In my tanks, they also seem surprisingly particular about conditions before they reproduce successfully.

I actually find them harder to breed than I expected—which may help explain why I don't see them for sale very often.

For me, they have become a kind of natural maintenance crew:

They eat duckweed.

They clean algae.

They eat pest-snail eggs.

They don't bother my baby fish or shrimp.

Their population is manageable.

And they're beautiful.

I originally bought two of them by mistake.

More than a year later, I have around 60 in six aquariums and wouldn't want a planted tank without them.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with Giant Colombian Ramshorns? I'm especially curious whether yours eat duckweed and other ramshorn eggs too.