Where do you get feeder snails?

My kids and I have our hearts set on getting a green spotted puffer. The tank is all up and cycled. Found some brackish ones, but gotta head to a different store to get one that is still in fresh water. But, I can't find snails for it. I gotta pay $1.99/snail for a fancy one. but I can't feed him like that daily. any ideas? can i get them online somewhere?

If you go to "aquabid" and look under "snails" there were a couple different people selling ramshorns & pond snails. You could set up a small tank feed the dickens out of them and raise yourself some. Just an idea.

The large Briggs snails are not what you want. You want either Bladder or Pond snails. I've got plenty ifn ya want em. ;o)

MTS might be good too.

What do snails eat? LOL! I have a 10 gal with a betta in it. Can i raise snails with him?

They'll eat anything. They are scavengers. You can feed them regularly.

And yes, they can be with a Betta.

yes those snails will breed like crazy in a 10 gal with a betta and some plants.

ok.. need some gravel and plants in there.. LOL I was gonna try to breed betta, but mine weren't a good match.

if your not wanting to do plants jsut get some algae waffers :)

yes and also if you buy live plants (not from the box stores) they will probably have snails or eggs on them.

The Betta will pick at the snails. If you're lucky enough to get them to breed the Bettas will also eat the babies. Don't forget that Bettas are carnivores and love to eat anything that is alive. I have about 20 Betta juvies that I put into my apple snail tank thinking it would do as a grow out tank for the bettas. With in about 5 minutes I noticed the bettas nipping at the snails heads. Got the net and got the juvies out right away so be careful if you do put them with your betta.

I have found the ebay and aquabid snail dealers to be pretty darn pricey. Usually there are other hobbyists who have more than they know what to do with, and snails ship very easily Priority Mail. You may be able to get some for free from the LFS, but that is variable. MTS are almost for sure going to be too hard for the puffer.

Pop some ramshorn or pond snails in a 5-10 gallon with plants and feed them every day like you would fish, and before long you'll have plenty.

How are you maintaining your cycle in the tank?

MTS will multiply like rabbits and also can live in hard water.

Question: what size tank are you putting this puffer in? Are you planning on keeping anything else with it?

Just a loan spotted puffer- 25 gal for now. i just saw some that are less than 2" at the LFS. they are brackish already so time to add in the marine salt. tank is all cycled fresh.

what's the best way to get it started brackish? the guy at the LFS said just to add 1 Tbsp marine salt per 15 gal. but everything I'm reading online is 1 TBSP per gallon.

thoughts?

You need to measure salinity, rather than going by a recipe. After you set up the tank and water evaporates, the salt in the water won't go anywhere, so if you add more water with more salt you gradually raise your salinity beyond where you want it, potentially.

The easiest and cheapest way to do this in a simple brackish tank is to get one of those thermometers that measures salinity also. It is weighted and has a gauge on the top, so depending how low or high the glass thermometer floats, that's how much salinity is in the tank. I just keep mine right in the corner and constantly monitor salinity. I keep a jug of aged water at full marine salinity, and I use that to mix with PWC FW to get the correct salinity.

When you say the tank is cycled, if there are no fish in the tank it isn't cycled. You'll need to cycle the tank brackish (different bacteria than fresh - it sounds like you already know that!), but I hate for this cycle to happen with the puffer, which won't tolerate this process very well. Preferably the bacterial cycle will be complete before you add the puffer.

PWC? I have no idea what that is. sorry...

can you suggest a different fish? how about 1 bumble bee goby?

The reason I asked if you planned on keeping any other fish with your puffer is because puffers are pretty aggressive. If you keep any other fish with it, the puffer will nip at its fins till nothing's left. They're excellent at eating crustaceans though.

Just something to keep in mind for the future...

That is what I am going to do, is set up a small 20G as a feeder/breeder tanks for all my feeder fish, snail, crustaceans, ect. Thats the best way to go versus buying them outright. Some pet stores such as petsmart, petco or other local pet suppy that sells snails may sometimes give you baby snails at a discount or even for free sometimes. These stores have breeding problems like crazy, so they are often times overloaded and need to get rid of them. I managed a petco for 3 years, constantly gave away snails or sold a couple hundred babies for a few bucks becuase they bred like crazy.

BUSY LITTLE BUGGERS THEY ARE! =)

PWC - partial water change, which is what you'll be doing on a regular schedule once the tank is established, using tap water, presumably, and adding some marine salt to boost salinity.

Not popular with most folks but you can cycle the tank with some black mollies, who do fine in a brackish setup, and who can also tolerate a cycle. Starting off with a new FW setup, it could take as long as six weeks to cycle the tank. Your puffer would become ill and possibly die during that time, but mollies likely won't.

If you can find some brackish filter media from someone else (dirty filter floss from an established brackish tank) add that to the filter with the mollies and you'll almost cycle the tank without any stress to the fish. Leave them in the tank for about 3 weeks with the dirty filter floss in the filter, and you'll skip the difficult parts of the cycle, and the tank will be ready for the puffer much quicker.

If you do that, you'd need to put the dirty filter floss in your current filter within an hour or so of leaving the established tank, and already have the mollies in your tank, ready to go. In other words, bacteria needed for the cycle die quickly without water flow and fish waste to feed them.

This can be a tricky process, a PITA, but otherwise you'll put the puffer through a lot of difficulty, and likely lose it. There are packaged products of preserved bacteria that you can add to the tank to instantly cycle, and I have had good success using BioSpira in the past, but Marineland sold this product and I don't know who is selling it nowadays. If you do use a product to instantly cycle the tank, I'd definitely do it with mollies, because it can sometimes be a slightly bumpy ride, though lasting only a week at the most. BioSpira used to be sold refrigerated with live bacteria, and as long as you got the dose right (the right amount of live bacteria for the amount of fish in the tank) you'd be good to go.

Hey joodie send me a pm I have tons looks like gravel but moves lol

Anyone have brackish filter media? lol I was able to get some free snails at the LFS- Yay! Just need to get this tank going.