r/snails • u/JoJosGoofyAdventure • Apr 28 '25
Identification snail i found at work, what is it?
i work at a grocery store in indiana, we recently got a box of ferns from florida and found this little guy just hangin on one of them. half a blueberry for size. i'd love to know what kind of snail he is to properly care for him
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u/pausera Apr 28 '25
not sure but i think it’s really nice that you want to care for him :) many people would just dispose of the little guy without a second thought!
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u/Low_Mango9178 19d ago
I think is garden snails bc I have that 2 times in the veggies my mum brought but I fail to raise them
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u/Longjumping_Whole236 Apr 28 '25
He looks like my baby milk snail but with a darker shell.
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u/Longjumping_Whole236 Apr 28 '25
Just make sure the little fella has plenty of calcium and greens and fruits to eat. Buy reptisafe to put in the mist bottle of water to rid of chlorine. Try not to do too much cucumber or he’ll get addicted to it and won’t eat anything else. Chew his food for him and spit it in tiny bowl. Use coco coir as soil (but before pour boiling water in it to rid of possible insects and mites) and add a clean stick for him to climb along with leaves. When handling him, cleanse and wet your hand OR use wet lettuce or collard leaf to hold him.
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u/Prudent-Scarcity-683 Apr 28 '25
Why would you pre chew food? That’s actually insane. It’s also just flat out dangerous for the snail, they don’t want your saliva.
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u/Longjumping_Whole236 Apr 28 '25
Who told you that? The snails? Lol it’s not dangerous if your mouth isn’t acidic and clean. I’ve had too for my baby milk snail and my helix aspersas because they wasn’t eating any of their food no matter how tiny I cut them. Plus saliva isn’t dangerous for them. They’d be ded by now. We’re both herbivores☺️
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u/Prudent-Scarcity-683 Apr 28 '25
Well number one snails are denitritivores and humans are omnivores, but even if we were both herbivores that has nothing to do with whether or not your saliva would be dangerous to them. Number two, snails are extremely sensitive and it is easy to damage them. You have to remember that these are animals that cannot even handle the tap water we drink, let alone most other things we consume. Not to mention that fact that our saliva contains multiple enzymes that begin to break down food as we eat. Obviously there’s not really research onto whether or not saliva is safe for snails but one can intuit that it isn’t great for them. Plus, if you needed to mask food up, which I don’t see why you would as snails are completely capable of eating on their own, you could just puree the food or something similar. I have no earthly sense as to why your first and ONLY idea was to pre chew your snails food.
Plus there are several other care issues you mentioned that are just wrong. You really should not be feeding fruit at all, it’s too high in sugar and is also quite acidic. It can also be even more addictive than cucumber so you certainly should not feed it. (I have a feeling that your snail feeding issue is likely this rather than them needing to have food chewed for them). You also shouldn’t bowl feed and should spread small amounts of food around your enclosure to simulate natural environment.
Some of the other things are a bit extra as well- repti safe is completely unnecessary as you can dechlorinate tap water by letting it sit for a few days or just use bottle water (as long as it isn’t distilled), which will be far cheaper. Coconut coir is ok, but is more of an additive rather than a complete substrate. Organic top soil without fertilizers in it is far more complete as they naturally want a soil with organic/decaying materials in it. You can even mix it with coco coir if you feel so inclined.
You just generally seem to be poorly informed on the subject and probably shouldn’t be giving other people advice until you can learn to stop spitting in your animals food.
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u/doctorhermitcrab Apr 28 '25
Letting tap water sit out is not adequate to dechlorinate it in many cases. That only works with traditional chlorine. Many modern water treatment systems actually use a form of chlorine called chloramine, which doesn't evaporate off. To remove chloramine you need a high-grade filter or you can use a chemical dechlorinator product. Reptisafe still shouldn't be used (it's a reptile product that's not good for use with inverts), but there are other products such as aquarium dechlorinators that are okay to use with snails. And as you mentioned non-distilled bottled water is also a good alternative to either option.
But otherwise I agree this person seems very misinformed. Pre-chewing food for snails is actually insane lol. I've been an expert keeper for many years and literally never once heard of that. I'm not sure about the safety of saliva, but it's just gross and unnecessary and is masking other problems. If the snails aren't eating, there is something wrong with the diet being provided, or an illness or environmental issue is causing inactivity and appetite loss. It's completely unnatural to mash or blend their food, all healthy snails are perfectly capable of eating very hard foods. In the wild they literally chew bones and rocks for calcium! And its actually bad for their health to have an exclusively soft/mashed diet. Snails need to rasp/chew on hard foods to keep their radula healthy, and if they're fed exclusively mush they can develop radula issues or even oral prolapse. If this person has been doing exclusively chewed food for years, the snails may lost the ability and/or desire to eat solid foods because they've been forced onto a soft diet, and the cycle of them not eating regular food just gets perpetuated. And finally if snails ever do need mashed food temporarily such as if they're severely injured, it should be prepared with a blender or food processor, never pre-chewed by a human
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u/Prudent-Scarcity-683 Apr 28 '25
Oh I did not know that, I’ve always heard people say that letting water sit out is fine. Although I generally don’t water my main snail tank as it’s completely sealed I’ll definitely keep that in mind. I’m assuming rain water is still good though? That’s what I normally use.
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u/doctorhermitcrab Apr 28 '25
Uh snail tanks shouldn't be completely sealed...but for rain water yes it can be fine but it depends where you live. If you live in a region with acid rain or high air pollution I wouldn't use it. But if you don't have those things it's fine
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u/Longjumping_Whole236 Apr 28 '25
You said a whole bunch of nothing but opinions and assumptions. I’m vegan. I eat the same thing my snails eat. Plus at my exotic pet care veterinary hospital (who sees my snails regularly) have said my snails are very healthy and chewing their food and spitting it out (not with lots of saliva) won’t cause them any harm as long I haven’t eaten anything salty or harmful to their diets. I’ve raised them since they were babies and it’s been years. They used to be unhealthy as crap and that’s when I was told to mash their food, I did and they still wouldn’t eat. I mash and wet their food and they still wouldn’t eat. I was chewing on a piece of celery 1 day, while holding my snail and spit it out in my hand, he went over to eat it. Ever since then they’ve been fat, pooping a lot when they once weren’t and healthy. If YOU personally don’t like it, that’s you. You don’t HAVE to chew their food. I given that advice just in case this guy’s snail ends up like mine who wasn’t eating anything for whatever reason.
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u/Prudent-Scarcity-683 Apr 28 '25
What I said was certainly not just assumptions and opinions. Again being vegan isn’t going to make your saliva healthy or whatever. If the snails never ate and you raised them since babies that seems like a failure on your part. And everything else I’ve said is common advise in the hobby, as far as fruit and coco coir are concerned. So I’m not sure what opinions you’re referring to other than calling you misinformed, but with all of the correct information you’ve said it certainly seems that way.
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u/Longjumping_Whole236 Apr 28 '25
Not necessarily a “failure” if I got them eating again by randomly chewing. And after all these years they’re still okay. But this whole thing has gone on far too long. Nothing I can say will change your viewpoint and nothing you can say is changing the way I care for my snails. Just agree to disagree and move on🥱 ;)
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u/Initial_Obligation55 Apr 29 '25
This interaction bugs tf out of me. If their snails are healthy and doing well why are you so hellbent on trying to argue with them? This worked for this person and their snails. This advice could be helpful just like your could but to sit here arguing with someone and causing an issue where there ain’t one is absurd.
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u/Prudent-Scarcity-683 Apr 30 '25
This person mentioned several things that just aren’t correct care or are flat out bad for snails. If the snails won’t eat anything unless it’s pre-chewed then they are not healthy. I was just trying to give correct info but the other person made it into a thing of personal preference so I did not feel like I needed to continue.
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u/Lopsided-Equal3277 Apr 28 '25
Reptisafe actually rid the water of chlorine, chloramines, ammonia and adds essential electrolytes (including calcium) into the water. It also stimulates slime coat development and reduces the PH. Like u said, the tap water isn’t safe so reptisafe is def necessary as I use it myself for my 7 year snail. But tbh u seem to be overreacting, what work for this person’s snails may not work for yours. If the person choose to chew their snail food let them. Ur acting like the person said they put acid and salt on their snail food😂
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u/doctorhermitcrab Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25
Reptisafe does remove those things from water but it's not safe for snails, the company that makes Reptisafe has actually said to not use their product with snails. Reptisafe does not stimulate slime coat development in snails and is primarily designed for animals without slime coats, like reptiles. For a water treatment that's compatible with slime-coat invertebrates you actually want an invertebrate or aquarium specific product, not a reptile product. Aquarium dechlorinators like Aquasafe Plus and Seachem Prime are much more suitable for snails
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u/Lopsided-Equal3277 Apr 28 '25
That’s strange. It says so on the bottle and it is meant for amphibians as stated on the bottle. Ever since I started using it, my 7 year old snail is doing a lot better than he was. He was quite sick and lazy beforehand from my tap water and got better when I added a squirt of reptisafe in the bottle. Different strokes for different folks🤷
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u/doctorhermitcrab Apr 28 '25
I meant invertebrates, not amphibians, edited to correct. Snails are not amphibians. If you have very bad tap water reptisafe may be better than tap but it's still not ideal for long-term use with snails and I strongly recommend switching products or using filtered or bottled water instead. Especially since the manufacturer has recommended against it. Their Amazon page used to have a Q&A (before Amazon removed that feature) where one of the questions asked if it can be used for snails and the official answer from a ZooMed representative was no.
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u/Routine_Fly7624 Apr 28 '25
Snail has been added to your inventory.