Ramshorn snails and mixing colors

[Kit Craft]

A little background: Until recently I had never kept invertebrates, but I have kept fish for years. After a break (due to moving house/country) I decided it was time to get some tanks set back up. Our first inhabitants were White Clouds (my favorite) followed by a purple mystery snail, who has gone from the size of a dime to the size of a quarter in two weeks, and my wife and I just fell in love with snails. However, we have a project tank on the nightstand that has been setup with pre seeded media, substrate, plants and wood (was thinking ahead) and am aging some cholla wood and Indian Almond leaves in the main tank. Anyway, we want to make an invert jar with cherry shrimp and ramshorns. The thing is, one of the places where I get my fish has a promotion on mixed ramshorns. Some odd ball morphs, blues, pinks, reds and probably even some plain brown ones. It is like 10 for the price of 3 with that deal and I have a hard time passing up deals...lol.

 

On to the question. If I keep multiple colors together, will all of the babies revert to brown like is said to happen with shrimp? Snail genetics are confusing. I was reading, an old thread on here, where it was mentioned that even if you got all pink snails, you would end up with browns etc anyway (paraphrasing). So, would there be any point to keeping just one color of snail? I don't really mind getting some undesirable colors, those can be shifted into other tanks as they are still useful. And we will likely setup a pea puffer tank in the future as my wife loves those little buggers. So, food and all that. I get the idea of culling and all that just no 90% of them every clutch, lol. 

 

Basically, I just don't want a tank full of brown snails, lol. I was all set on pink but then my wife saw the mixed pack with spots etc. 

 

Any advice would be much apricated. 

[TOtrees]

no they won't revert to brown. you'll continue to get a diversity of specific colors. 

[Kit Craft]

Thank you @TOtrees

[TOtrees]

Here's my attempt at explaining ramshorn appearance, for the lay person. 

There are 3 basic parameters that make up a ramshorn snail's appearance. Shell color, body color and spots. I've seen some sources that say shells can be opaque or translucent, but it's not necessary to know if that's true or not to understand this model/analogy. For any ramshorn that is born, think of it like rolling 2 dice and flipping the coin at the same time. One die each for the shell and body color, and the coin flip is for spots or no spots (because there's no such thing as a 2 sided die).

Body (foot) color can be brown, red, yellow or purple. Shell color can be brown, white or yellow. The classic "blue" ramshorn has white shell with brown body. "Pink" has white shell over red body. And so forth. In reality, it's unlikely that the 4 body colors and 3 shell colors all have equal probabilities, so those two dice may be "loaded" or weighted to prefer certain outcomes. But the colors are distinct, and don't blend or mix. This is where they are different from cherry shrimp. In shrimps there is blending or gradients of traits, and they do tend to drift back to the original form (brown) if not reinforced over time. 

So if you have a tank of only blue ramsnorns, their babies will have more blues than you'd find in a random or natural population, but not all blues. And there would be some of the other color combos as well. Over time and over many successive generations, the number of blues (% of total population that is blue) diminishes but never gets to zero, and the % of other colors increases also. 

Final thought. Make sure your snails get enough calcium, both in their diet and in the water. Ramshorns are really pretty when their shells are clean and shiny, but when calcium is low they get pitted and chalky, and they don't look nearly as nice. 

[Lennie]

@Cinnebuns may help. She was breeding for colors if I remember correctly

[MattyM]

On 10/19/2023 at 1:51 PM, TOtrees said:

Final thought. Make sure your snails get enough calcium, both in their diet and in the water.

Yup - this is why I toss some crab cuisine in my tank, and add some cuttlefish bone. 

[Biotope Biologist]

The blue ones seem to be the rarest at least with my population. Idk as you are aware snail genetics are very confusing and I attempted to read some genome reports and my head started hurting, so I decided to stop. 
 

All colors occur naturally and don’t seem to be influenced by environment or diet factors.

 

My population is as follows with these numbers being guesses:

white shell/red foot- 5%
grey shell/blue foot- 1%
brown shell/red foot- 30%
brown shell/ brown foot- 40%

gold shell/brown foot- 10%
others I can’t remember-14%
 

I have had a mixed population for a year and a half now as they make great goby food! But otherwise I just let them do their thing. I have a beautiful red foot gold shell one that has produced quite a few clutches for me. They are my oldest snail. 
 

Thats all I got the rest is 🤷

[Kit Craft]

Wow, a lot of information here. Thank you everyone! I think we will go ahead and get the assorted package. Calcium is covered. Wonder shells, banquette blocks and snello. Now to get the snails (and more plants). 

[Cinnebuns]

Myself and a friend did some selective breeding to play around with the colors and figure out the lines they create. We did have a thread going describing this although we have not kept up with it. Basically what we found is exactly what @TOtrees is saying as well as finding the relationships between the colors. For example, you can have one color that appears purple because it has a blue leopard (spots) shell with a red foot. Here's an example of that: 

As opposed to one with a purple foot like this:

It's important to note that they have 2 layers to their shell. The leopard spots are only on 1 layer. As they age their shells thicken and the leopard spots become less obvious. 

I do go with the idea of some have a translucent shell and some solid. I have seen many examples of the same color with each. Like here is some red/pink with translucent and then some with solid shells:

 

The typical blue in ramshorns tends to be very dark and almost black. It is possible to get a vivid blue but it's not common.  Here's a common blue and a more vivid blue:

What gets really interesting is the multi colored ones. That's where you can get some interesting genetics if you can get those isolated. Here's some I've had:

The last 2 multi colored tends to kick out ivory which is pure white. These tend to be dwarf and stay small. I've seen it debated if they can breed at all. Some say they are dwarf and unhealthy and can't breed. Others say mixing them back with the multi colored is what creates purple. I'm undecided on which is true. 

Here's some other pics of colors i have had. I know I have had a darker orange before but I can't seem to find the pic. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lennie]

On 10/20/2023 at 11:22 PM, Cinnebuns said:

 

On 10/20/2023 at 11:22 PM, Cinnebuns said:

 

these look amazing to me

[Cinnebuns]

On 10/20/2023 at 3:32 PM, Lennie said:

 

these look amazing to me

They are the most common ones I've gotten but still my favorites by far. They are the ones I was able to stabilize the best. 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Cinnebuns

[Biotope Biologist]

On 10/20/2023 at 1:22 PM, Cinnebuns said:

Myself and a friend did some selective breeding to play around with the colors and figure out the lines they create. We did have a thread going describing this although we have not kept up with it. Basically what we found is exactly what @TOtrees is saying as well as finding the relationships between the colors. For example, you can have one color that appears purple because it has a blue leopard (spots) shell with a red foot. Here's an example of that: 

As opposed to one with a purple foot like this:

It's important to note that they have 2 layers to their shell. The leopard spots are only on 1 layer. As they age their shells thicken and the leopard spots become less obvious. 

I do go with the idea of some have a translucent shell and some solid. I have seen many examples of the same color with each. Like here is some red/pink with translucent and then some with solid shells:

 

The typical blue in ramshorns tends to be very dark and almost black. It is possible to get a vivid blue but it's not common.  Here's a common blue and a more vivid blue:

What gets really interesting is the multi colored ones. That's where you can get some interesting genetics if you can get those isolated. Here's some I've had:

The last 2 multi colored tends to kick out ivory which is pure white. These tend to be dwarf and stay small. I've seen it debated if they can breed at all. Some say they are dwarf and unhealthy and can't breed. Others say mixing them back with the multi colored is what creates purple. I'm undecided on which is true. 

Here's some other pics of colors i have had. I know I have had a darker orange before but I can't seem to find the pic. 

 

 

 

 

 

If you can get some rhyme or reason out of it I imagine some variants might be sellable! 
 

They look great!

[Kit Craft]

@Cinnebuns Thank you for sharing! Those are some good-looking snails! 

[Cinnebuns]

On 10/20/2023 at 6:41 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

If you can get some rhyme or reason out of it I imagine some variants might be sellable! 
 

They look great!

I unfortunately got sick of having 6-8 tanks exclusively for ramshorn snails so I stopped the project before I was able to do all the goals I had but I did learn a lot from it!

[Odd Duck]

I have lots of gold shell, red foot and they look kind of rose gold or coppery depending on the individual and the light.  I also have groups of white shell, red to pink foot, but I’ve never found any in my area or tank that has a gold foot although I know it happens.  I’d love to,get a gold foot, gold shell line going.  I’ve also never gotten an ivory although I have some that have very pale pink feet.  My gold shell, red foot will sometimes throw a brown randomly, but not often.  I always put browns in a separate tank and pull them out of my color breeding population as soon as I notice them.  I rarely have blues and rarely have spots though I get spots once in a while.

I did add a few new to me snails from a tank I bought intact from a guy that had multiple species of snails and some of those have spots.  I separated them by color into my tanks so we’ll see what changes they may bring to the genetic dice roll.  I don’t think I have any good pics of snails, let me see if I have some accidental decent pics of snails.

These are the palest of the gold shell, pink foot.  They are nearly pink only but have a touch of gold to the shells.

[Kit Craft]

@Odd Duck Being with shrimp only makes them look larger than they are, lol. 

[Odd Duck]

On 10/23/2023 at 10:51 AM, Kit Craft said:

@Odd Duck Being with shrimp only makes them look larger than they are, lol. 

Yes.  I pull them out to go in a different tank when they get too large.

I still never seem to manage to get them out soon enough to prevent reproduction.  I would like to have a single ramshorn at a time in this tiny tank but I can’t seem to ever get there.

[Kit Craft]

@Odd Duck Well, we shall see how that goes for me as mine are ordered. By the way everybody talks, all of my tanks will be crawling with snails in no time. I've got dozens of 3-gallon jars and vases that I can turn into snail projects if I want too, lol. I do think I'd like a larger 3-6 gallon bubble vase/bowl next though. Maybe I can sneak one from the crafts room without my wife getting irritated. I'm out of plants that I can steal from other tanks though, lol. 

[Odd Duck]

On 10/23/2023 at 11:12 AM, Kit Craft said:

I'm out of plants that I can steal from other tanks though

Meh.  Plants grow.  You’ll have more eventually.  😆 

[Kit Craft]

@Odd Duck Yeah, I kind of jumped in headfirst to plants this time around and am still learning what I like or can grow and what I can't. So, it'll be a bit yet. 

[Matt B]

I recently got a couple of Ramshorns, put them in a 10 gal and within a week there are tiny ones. How fast do they grow?

[Cinnebuns]

On 10/23/2023 at 10:22 AM, Odd Duck said:

I’d love to,get a gold foot, gold shell line going.

I have had gold foot gold shell but I couldn't find the pic I took. I wasn't able to make more than 1 tho. 

 

On 10/23/2023 at 10:22 AM, Odd Duck said:

I’ve also never gotten an ivory

True ivory come from the ones in my comment with both blue and red foot. Mix blue and Red and pray to the gods and when you see one isolate it. If you see 2 or more put them together. Eventually they will produce a true ivory. 

On 10/23/2023 at 10:22 AM, Odd Duck said:

I rarely have blues and rarely have spots though I

You could try isolating the few blues you do get. 

On 10/24/2023 at 1:41 AM, Matt B said:

I recently got a couple of Ramshorns, put them in a 10 gal and within a week there are tiny ones. How fast do they grow?

I'm not 100% sure but those may be dwarf and won't get much bigger. They def look ivory and ivory tends to be dwarf. What color were the ones you initially added?

Edited October 24, 2023 by Cinnebuns

[Matt B]

@Cinnebuns  The 2 original adult Ramshorns are blues that a got from Flip Aquatics. It is amazing to me how quickly there are now lots of little ones! It's so cool to watch them developing those little 'Ramshorns swirls! 

[Cinnebuns]

On 10/24/2023 at 7:51 AM, Matt B said:

developing those little 'Ramshorns swirls

What's your gh and ph?  Those swirls are actually shell rot unfortunately. 

[Matt B]

On 10/24/2023 at 10:34 AM, Cinnebuns said:

What's your gh and ph?  Those swirls are actually shell rot unfortunately. 

@Cinnebuns

I was actually referring to the tiny 'new' little Ramshorns growing the 'Ram Horn' shape. Not any swirls in the shells of the 2 adults that I just got. I actually have no idea how old these snails may be. Would you happen to know how long it takes a typical Ramshorn juvenile to reach 'full size'? 🤔 

gh and ph are good 👍. And I've got so much crushed coral and Wonder Shell in the tank, that it's Mineral Nirvana for the Cherry Shrimp, Snails and Guppies !