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Filopaludina martensi snail adventure (White Wizard)


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On 8/3/2022 at 12:29 PM, eatyourpeas said:

I do! And he/she now has a name: Mambo! Inspired by the swaying of the tentacles when gliding around... 🐌

Elmer did a very nice detailing job on the shell, now shiny and clean!

Also, I found this interesting article:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/03/discovered-in-the-deep-the-snail-with-iron-armour

Hello Mambo 😍 That snail is crazy!  Armor plated foot.  That would keep a pea puffer busy 🤣

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  • 2 weeks later...

SLOOOOW

 

These guys are generally slower than any other snails I’ve kept and slightly less active. I believe the group I got were older based on size and shell growth. The smallest has rather noticeable new growth and is very active compared to the others.  As the size of each increases in comparison their individual activity level decreases. The largest 2 are very inactive and are the ones that simply don’t venture out of the food dish unless I move them. Then they return even with no food present they stay there. The growth edge of those two is jagged from old chipped growth and new growth is almost nonexistent.  I think the seller had them for a while and may not have fed enough or had calcium source foods  …most sellers don’t so no slight to them. 
 

Keeping my fingers crossed at least some are still offspring bearing age.  
 

Here is the presumed oldest with the roughest shell and no new growth so you can see what I mean by jagged edge.

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Edited by Guppysnail
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The learning curve in this hobby is so stinking steep. There was something that looked like a smooshed bladder snail crawling on my wizard snail. No discernible shell but crawled all over. I took a zoomed photo because my eyes are poor and still could not tell my least killifish were all over pecking it though. I pulled it off to determine what is was though by the time I reacted it had stopped moving, I believe my LK killed it. 
it was squishy but firm. I left it in a cup of tank water while I retrieved my magnifying glass. It no longer moved. 

It was what appeared to be a baby wizard with no shell. 

So either the shell did not firm correctly inside mom or maybe it had just been birthed and the shell had not hardened?  I’m uncertain as birthing videos and info are scarce and only show a brown mini wizard. 
 

That tiny with that much interest by the LK I’m not going to get babies in that tank. 
 

I cleaned out the mystery snail nursery tank and relocated those to the shrimp tank. I put the WW and the VV snails in the little 5gal I bought as a mystery nursery. 
 

Funny thing. Both types became much more exploratory. Still the slowest mover but no longer staying in one space. Prior to the LK I had guppy boys in with them. I think both were overly inquisitive and causing fear in the WW snails. 
 

I would recommend keeping these with schooling fish like tetras etc that do not forage for food based on this observation. 
 

HAPPY ADVENTURES…

LEARN SOMETHING NEW 
 

 

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On 8/20/2022 at 4:28 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Hmm. I wonder if that’s how they start out? Without a shell? Or if that was a birth defect.

It looked like the swirly fiber would have been where the spire should be. They are more contained so I should be able to tell on the next baby if the shell hardens after birth. It makes sense that it would not be hardened inside the mother. Possibly why it stayed on moms shell trying to use her shell as a calcium source?

Though I’m sad at what happened these are the interesting tidbits I enjoy learning. All the stuff you don’t read in the internet or see on YouTube 

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On 8/20/2022 at 5:38 PM, Guppysnail said:

It looked like the swirly fiber would have been where the spire should be. They are more contained so I should be able to tell on the next baby if the shell hardens after birth. It makes sense that it would not be hardened inside the mother. Possibly why it stayed on moms shell trying to use her shell as a calcium source?

Though I’m sad at what happened these are the interesting tidbits I enjoy learning. All the stuff you don’t read in the internet or see on YouTube 

It’s fascinating.

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If they are anything like marine snails their shells are formed within the first 18 days of being hatched. Mom likely is best protection against attacks, although not in this case.

 

They devote alot of resources to this process, think molting but in reverse for arthropods. There are some cool pics of larval moon snails online:

image.jpeg.5f2b8dc5cedf73017afaad22dc99a910.jpeg
 

sorry about your baby though 😔

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/2/2022 at 9:39 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

How cool!!!  Congrats!
 

Shrimp self-designated welcoming committee. 😍

No fishes in there right? Wouldn’t want baby to get chomped!

No no fishes. I put them in there by themselves except for shrimp terrorists which I regret. The shrimp pick at them and it scares them and they close up. Much shyer than mystery snails. I’m slowly fishing them out but they reproduce faster than bladder snails for me. 

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On 9/2/2022 at 11:14 AM, eatyourpeas said:

What a wonderful way to observe nature at its best. Unfortunately not all babies make it, but when they do, it is certainly a reason to celebrate! Love these snails!😍

It is hard to watch babies if anything not thrive. I crushed up a nano spirulina calcium block to powder and added fry food so everything is coated in all the goodies they need for the best chance to survive. 

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@Pknsmasher was kind enough to send me photos of new born white wizards since they used to breed them. The shells are fully formed at birth. 

I found one of the suspected babies passed. It still had no shell. The other is MIA. 
 

SOMETHING is definitely off.  Either what I was seeing was bladder snails that got crushed by the larger snails falling on them or the babies are not forming correctly. 
 

I notice my wondershell and spirulina calcium nano blocks disappear at an alarming rate in this tank. Almost half the time it takes in mystery snail tanks. So possibly they need a lot more calcium than I’m giving if these were WW babies. Possibly these WW are much older and no longer in breeding condition. Possibly these are babies that were forming at the sellers and they did not get proper nutrition in formative stages.  
 

My only other thought is the VV/?p snails and WW are cross breeding (I’ve seen cross mating) but what is resulting is malformed non-viable offspring?  Could that even be possible??  
 

Totally guessing at all this. Chime in with any thoughts anyone might have. So my first order of business is going to be moving the WW’s to the funny shrimp tank. First I have to relocate the rest of my baby mystery snails and set the funny tank/ plants clipping mess up so I can see the WW snails 😝 

These are photos of the photos @Pknsmasher shared with me.  Hopefully they will share the originals for better quality. 

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Edited by Guppysnail
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So I turned the temp down 1 degree so it now sits at 74.  They are more active and I finally see them mating with one another vs the VV/?p mating them. I also put in 2 pipsqueak baby magenta mystery snails to get them extra food. So maybe babies present has something to do with it 🤷‍♀️  I also removed some of the solid frogbit cover. Seems I need to replace it. These guys grow algae quick. 
 

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On 9/19/2022 at 8:13 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Maybe it just seems that way because they are white.

Very possible. The VV do not have any “visible” yet. I threw in a handful of salvinia minima this morning.  Also just seen another set mating. Hopefully the recipients of the amorous attention are actually girls 🤣

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I am fairly certain the group of WW I got were older. I only see any shell growth if I wear my serious wishful thinking hat. The one that never moved away from food has passed. The others are still active but completely full grown.
 

This may be the cause of the odd looking births. The last baby perished also. I’m working with someone else to obtain a younger group. The shells on these were not in top condition when I got them so they may have not been getting what they needed prior to me and were already in decline. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

White wizards now have their own tank. I have 4 piano snail babies so let’s see if giving them their own tank I may get one or two from this group. The pianos were actively mating these so maybe that’s what’s going wrong on top of being elderly 🤷‍♀️

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