Ramshorn Snail Colors

[Cinnebuns]

A friend and I have been Nerming out over ramshorn snail coloring for awhile now. I figured it would be nice to make a journal to track and discuss it. Idk how much work people have done with this but it's super interesting to me.

My introduction to ramshorn snails was getting them in on some Java moss. I killed over 20 of them before I realized I wanted to keep them!  Then I bought some lol. A few months later I met someone who was working with different colors and gave me some of his. Now I have many color going. It's neat to see how it comes out!

@Guppysnail @Chick-In-Of-TheSea idk if either of you are into ramshorns or if you know someone who is go ahead and tag them for me!

Brown

As with most species, brown is the wild morph. The interesting thing to me is sometimes this brown goes kinda copper. I've been tempted to experiment with grabbing the copper ones and isolating then together and seeing what happens!

 

Red/Pink

This is one of the 2 more common color variations along with blue. Even some of the brown shelled snails will have a red body. Sometimes the red can go more orange. This is something my friend has achieved and I might try. 

 

Blue

Blue is the other most common color variant. It can get very dark and even look black. I have seen pics of it more vibrant than this but part of me wonders if that's the same color with different lighting. I'm not sure. 

 

Purple

This is an interesting color. It's a red body with a blue shell. The color changes a lot as the snail ages and the shell color thickens. It kinda makes me think of when people who don't understand genetics ask "if I breed a red and a blue guppy will I get purple?" because in this case you will! 

 

Ivory

I dont know a lot about this color personally but I think it's really pretty. Mine specifically all have an ivory shell and a red body. Idk if they come in other ways or not. 

 

 

I would love to know if anyone else has any info or experience with these or other colors of ramshorns. I know they can also come with a striking gold but I've not personally seen it. 

 

 

[Guppysnail]

On 8/16/2022 at 2:59 PM, Cinnebuns said:

if you know someone who is go ahead and tag them for me!

@Hobbit(miss you Squidward🥰) @laritheloud @Odd Duck @Torrey

Off the top of my head those are the ramshorn folks. Though I think laritheloud is giant Colombian rams horns 

made @Fish Folk I think 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I think @Katherine got some of the pink ramshorns fairly recently.  

[Katherine]

On 8/16/2022 at 3:04 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I think @Katherine got some of the pink ramshorns fairly recently.  

I've had them for about a month. They were sold as red ramshorns, we just had them pick out some of the pinker shelled ones because that was what my daughter wanted.

Here's one of the older babies. The body is about the same color as the adults, the shell is kind of a see through coppery brown at this point. I don't know what it's going to do as it grows, but all my adults are the same color, and so were all the ones at the store.

[TheDukeAnumber1]

My experience with them is I got a random pair on plants in 09 and the colony that came from them was plain brown and brown with the lepoard pattern. After a few years I started getting some copper and after a few more years I started getting the blue variant. The population slowly shifted to mostly blue and a few years ago I removed all my brown snails from the colony and since then I have yet to get another brown. Currently all I have are the blue and blue with some leopard patterning.

My guess is the brown only holds due to selective pressure in the wild and currently in my colony I'm thinking about removing the leopard pattern in a try to get as close to colorless as I can get. I have never had a pink body one though, only the dark body morph.

Edited August 16, 2022 by TheDukeAnumber1

[Anjum]

@TuckerAtStonedAquatics very interesting! Someone else posted about getting color morph Ramshorns that turned out to just have unhealthy shells, and upon their shells becoming stronger, the shells are returning to the normal brown color. I have a population of Ramshorns that started as brown, but more recently the offspring are appearing bluish. Do you think this is a true color morph or a sign of an unhealthy shell? It's not the best pic, I can try & get better pics later if need be.

[Katherine]

On 8/16/2022 at 6:57 PM, TuckerAtStonedAquatics said:

The new growth looks much deeper red so snails happy!

They have been so happy to share the food I give my mystery snails. 😂 There was not a lot of food available to them at the store.

[Anjum]

@TuckerAtStonedAquatics what do you provide or feed to help keep shell quality strong?

[Hobbit]

This is fascinating! Thanks for tagging me @Guppysnail. 😊 I’ve only ever had red body ramshorns with a copper/brown shell. My water is super soft so it’s not the best environment for them, but they’re wonderful little creatures! I love the shiny morphs.

I did have one snail that “unrolled” for some reason. The forum named him+her Squidward. Unfortunately Squidward has now passed on, and while I tried to line breed him+her, I never got any swirly babies. I’m wondering if he+she had a soft shell and got squished in a tight spot one day and just ended up with a bent growth plate.

 

[Cinnebuns]

I'm tempted to maybe play around with the Ivory ones I have. I don't have a lot of tank options but I bet they would be fine in a tiny 2.5 gal I have. It seems to be the color people have the least info on and tbh it's the color that fascinates me. @TuckerAtStonedAquatics helped me get the ones I have. Maybe tomorrow ill work on isolating them and see what comes of it!

On 8/16/2022 at 11:20 PM, Hobbit said:

This is fascinating! Thanks for tagging me @Guppysnail. 😊 I’ve only ever had red body ramshorns with a copper/brown shell. My water is super soft so it’s not the best environment for them, but they’re wonderful little creatures! I love the shiny morphs.

I did have one snail that “unrolled” for some reason. The forum named him+her Squidward. Unfortunately Squidward has now passed on, and while I tried to line breed him+her, I never got any swirly babies. I’m wondering if he+she had a soft shell and got squished in a tight spot one day and just ended up with a bent growth plate.

 

That's super interesting!  I tend to think it COULD be a soft shell thing. Their shell does harden as they age from what I've learned so that could account for it keeping its shape eventually. Idk tho. It's an interesting case study. 

[Odd Duck]

I’ve found this to be one of the more helpful graphics to elucidate colors for ramshorns.  I’ve had leopards in brown, pink, and red randomly pop up, but I’ve not separated them quick enough and lost the pattern to solids.  I’ve had solid brown, pink, and red.  Never any gold, blue, or any with a light enough body for me to call them ivory.  I’d love to get some true golds vs the rose gold/coppery ones that are gold shell over a red body.

 

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/17/2022 at 1:24 AM, Odd Duck said:

I’ve found this to be one of the more helpful graphics to elucidate colors for ramshorns.  I’ve had leopards in brown, pink, and red randomly pop up, but I’ve not separated them quick enough and lost the pattern to solids.  I’ve had solid brown, pink, and red.  Never any gold, blue, or any with a light enough body for me to call them ivory.  I’d love to get some true golds vs the rose gold/coppery ones that are gold shell over a red body.

 

I just did some readings on some forum from 2011 about ramshorn genetics. Seems the white or gold body ramshorns are sick and typically die. Shell color however seems to be related to pink same with ivory. I just grabbed some of my Ivory ones and threw them in a tank alone. They all have pink bodies. Imma see if I can get some gold to pop out!

[Cinnebuns]

Sorry for the poor lighting, but for referrence, this is what the ones look like that I'm starting with. There is about 8 or so of them and they all have the same appearance. Clear shell with pink body. 

[Cinnebuns]

I grabbed a bunch of my purples and had a photo shoot. The bigger they get the more purple they look instead of red with blue lol

Edited August 18, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[modified lung]

I started with wild browns and from them i got reds. I bought some blues and from them i got pinks. The blue gene seems very unstable in my snails. Most of their babies turn out to be pink or a semi transparent tan.

Here's an brown cucking a pink and blue.

[Cinnebuns]

I'm having some fun in my brown/cull tank right now. 

First, I found this beauty that somehow missed me finding it. Might put that back with the reds and blues. Kinda makes me wonder if some of what I'm seeing is from this one...

 

I found this beautiful copper one. I know its not that unusual but I wanted to share because I found it stunning. 

 

Now for the more interesting. I believe this one is a lighter copper but to me it looks a little gold. What little is available online about ramshorn genetics suggests that gold comes from the lighter pinks. Part of me wonders if the genetics of this contribute too. It makes sense to me since brown is where they all come from. I'm tempted to throw this one in my experiment tank with the clear shelled pinks. 

 

The past week I've been watching a bunch of tiny ones that I've been calling "light purple."  I was curious how they would look when they got larger. Ramshorns colors change a little as their shell gets thicker. I found this one. To me it looks silver!  What do you think?  It's definitely blue leopard genes for the shell. 

 

I would also like to add some information from a conversation @TuckerAtStonedAquatics and I had about categorizing these colors. We kinda narrowed it down to 4 traits similar to the 3 traits in mystery snail genetics. 

1.  Foot color - can be blue or red. Pink is just a lighter version of red. 

2.  Shell color - can be lots of colors including:  brown, blue, red. @TuckerAtStonedAquatics idk if green should be included here?

3.  Opaque or solid shell

4.  Leopard or not. 

A great example is purple. Purple is red foot, blue shell, opaque and leopard. The opaque blue shell and red foot combine to make purple. 

 

@Hobbit tagging you since you seemed interested in this. 

[Cinnebuns]

I realized I haven't posted in here in awhile.  made this journal to track my progress with selective breeding ramshorns and studying their genetics with @TuckerAtStonedAquatics.  It doesn't do any good if I don't post haha.  Here's an update:

Red Ivory

Not much progress here. Have had some clutches hatch but they are still micro. Goals of this tank is to lighten the color and as always see where the line goes to discover genetic links. 

Blue Ivory

I started a tank for selective breeding blue ivory. There are some clutches laid but no visible babies yet. Goals of this tank is to make a vivid blue and as always see where the line goes to discover genetic links. 

Silver?  Another Blue Ivory?

Idk what to call these but they keep pulling me in everytime I see them so I picked 2 to isolate. No idea what will come of this but you don't know until you try!

 

Pale

There isn't a lot online about ramshorn color genetics but I have read what I can find. One common consensus is that pale or white ramshorns aren't a color morph but sick and likely won't survive long. There is however a few stories of people having some live full lives.  Part of the problem with these stories is the person didn't actually watch it grow from baby to adult but rather saw a large pale snail and assumed it was that color it's whole life and didn't for any reason turn pale. I decided to try to test this. I found a small pale one and isolated it today. Let's see what happens!

 

Fun colors I've found:

some sort of purple or lavender? 

 

Multi colored pink and purple 

 

Gold

 

Purple shell and foot

 

Just a pink I found pretty 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Anjum]

Is the leopard spotting on the shell or the body? I'm starting to see that in mine, never noticed it before so I think it's just popping up now. 

I really like those silvery ones too! 

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/2/2022 at 12:15 PM, Anjum said:

Is the leopard spotting on the shell or the body? I'm starting to see that in mine, never noticed it before so I think it's just popping up now. 

I really like those silvery ones too! 

Leopard is on the shell. As they grow older the shell thickens and the leopard spots are less obvious but still there. The picture of the blue is a great example of that. The spots kinda blend in with the rest of the shell but are still there. 

[Cinnebuns]

Updates

Purple

I have gotten more light purple and purple foot to pop up in both this and the cull tank. I move those from the cull tank to here. I have started to cull the super dark blues that look more black. I wish i could cull this more heavily but I need to keep some blue in there. Hopefully the ivory blue tank will start to produce and I can add some from there into here. Until then I go with what I have. 

 

 

Ivory Red

Not many decent sized babies here yet but tons and tons of egg clutches. Today I cleaned some of the mulm and discovered hidden babies all on the bottom. I've seen them this small before but it's still shocking! It's like specs of sand lol. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/11/2022 at 4:06 AM, TuckerAtStonedAquatics said:

A new color variant from my purple dwarf crossed with ivory blue

Notice the dark purpleish foot but light pink antenna, I have 20 or so of these guys and hoping to stabilize 

They are so pretty too

[Schuyler]

On 8/16/2022 at 4:51 PM, TuckerAtStonedAquatics said:

Hello! That does appear to be shell quality, although I would say that you're appears to be a rarer color type, jade. I see many of them in mutt mixes but light color yellow/gold is hard to achieve. 

If you'd like to see any of my other colors for examples I'll be happy to share!

I got one like this randomly. I love the blue spots so I'm putting it in it's own little tank with some blue snails to try and selectivity breed them. Made me think of this thread.

 

[Schuyler]

Anyone know if this is a variant, disease, or some other issue?

It's currently eating a piece of green bean from my garden. They really liked that.

Other snails in the tank seem happy enough. Like the two who appear to be mating in the background.

[Odd Duck]

Looks like a bit of pitting.  Can be from not quite enough calcium or magnesium in the diet when the shell formed (causes weak spots).  Or it could be from low pH etching the shell.  Shouldn’t cause any long term issues but make certain they have access to the good stuff with plenty of minerals.

[Solstice_Lacer]

My pinky pair have started making little babies, I'm excited to see them all grow