Breeding bladder snails: this is how keeping and breeding succeed

A well-functioning still water in your own garden not only needs plants, fish or Crustaceans and the necessary technology, but also organisms that take care of the pond To take care of. These include the bladder snails (Physidae), which are among the wolverines among pond cleaners and for this reason have long been used in aquariums. They feed on all kinds of dead plant remains.

Bladder snail in detail

The bladder snails are snails that, due to their large appetite, act as cleaning power in aquariums and garden ponds. They are small molluscs that usually do not grow larger than one centimeter, but can also reach sizes up to 2.5 centimeters, which is extremely rare. They can be recognized by the following characteristics:

• Case: turned to the left, smooth, mostly shiny, golden-brown coloring with black pattern, more rarely transparent
• narrow foot
• moves very quickly in the water
• Lung snail: does not have gills, but rather a breathing hole in the mantle cavity, part of the shell
• form visible threads of mucus in a horizontal direction when moving in the water
• hermaphrodite

Because of their speed, they are thorough and effective in their job as aquarium cleaners and algae killers in stagnant water. It is often introduced via plants that are either placed in the garden pond or the aquarium or specimens that are used to green the bank area. These are often the microscopic eggs from which the snails hatch and do their work.
Tip: If you want to use the bladder snails as a natural cleaner for your garden water, you can find them in pet shops or in corresponding shops on the Internet. There they are usually offered as feed for fish or crustaceans in a bag.

Caution: risk of confusion!

When purchasing the bladder snail, be careful not to accidentally buy the European pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis). These are not peaceful snails that feed on plant remains, but live plants are on the menu. In addition, Lymnaea stagnalis strongly displaces the bladder snail, as it eats the living plants, which then no longer rot and are available as a food source for Physidae. You can recognize the snail by its shell. This rotates to the right, not to the left as in the bladder snail.

attitude

Keeping the bladder snails is extremely easy, regardless of whether you keep the mollusks in the garden or in the aquarium. They actually take care of themselves completely and only need enough food and an appropriate water temperature in order not to perish. However, due to their modesty, they can also quickly become a nuisance, which is mainly due to the amount of food they have available. Still, it's a particularly beginner animal that you won't even notice in the garden pond unless you look for them.

Water quality

When it comes to the water in the garden pond, the Physidae shines compared to other snails. The animals are indicator organisms of the third water quality class that can survive and multiply even in heavily polluted waters. Neither their health, vitality or reproduction are not restricted by poor water quality, which makes them excellent for still waters on their own property. Even if you have never cleaned your garden pond, the snails can live there. The water should still have certain values:

• Temperature: 5 ° C - 30 ° C, ideally 15 ° C - 25 ° C
• pH value of the water: 5.5 - 8.5
• Required amount of water: at least 5 l, ideally from 10 l
• Freshwater

In addition to the amount of water, the snails prefer a bottom made of fine sand or gravel with a medium grain size. There they can easily hold on when you ingest food. Otherwise they move forward floating or drifting on the surface. Make sure that the temperature of the water never exceeds 30 ° C, otherwise the animals will die out in masses. For this reason, you have to be careful that your garden pond is not left in the blazing sun for several hours, otherwise the water could heat up too much. Below 5 ° C, the animals slowly put themselves into their cold rigidity, which is not fatal in the colony.

nourishment

Diet is the most important point in keeping bladder snails and many mistakes can be made here that will either harm your pond plants or the snails. In contrast to other snails or insects, they have extremely weak chewing tools and for this reason do not eat living plants. So your plants are safe as soon as you provide the bladder snails with the following feeds:

• Seaweed
• organic remains of other living beings
• Leftovers from fish or crustaceans
• decaying plant remains
• tofu
• Flake food
• typical food tablets

A big advantage of the animals is their tolerance to a change in diet. For example, if you can’t find any more plant remains, switch completely to algae nutrition, if these are available. This is also the reason why the small molluscs are so popular with aquarium owners. They eat off algae at high speed and can thus free the pond from massive accumulations of algae even in hot summer. This will improve:

• Water quality
• Quality of life for other pond inhabitants
• Pond temperature

Algae are one of the main food for snails and as every pond owner knows, algae build-up is often a problem. The animals don't even care about the quality of the food. They simply eat everything that comes before their antennae and live peacefully with other snails or animals as long as they do not feed on the snails. Make sure, however, that if there is insufficient food available, other sources are used, i.e. your pond plants. These are consumed as emergency rations, even if the animals take a very long time to do so.
Tip: If there is little algae formation in the garden pond, ensure that there are additional plants in the pond or choose one of the above-mentioned feeding methods so that the animals do not die in abundance. For example, you can chop up tofu and throw it into the pond or use classic plant-based flake food for fish.

Overwinter

The bladder snail can easily overwinter in the garden pond, as long as you do not empty it during the cold season. It is important that you do not only have individual snails, as they can only survive the winter together in a larger group.

Predators

Because of their size, the bladder snail does not have it easy in a well-populated pond. It is eaten by all pond dwellers larger than the snail. It has no defense mechanisms other than its speed and its armor, which can, however, be cracked very easily. Larger fish in particular feast on the tasty snails and can eradicate their populations within a short period of time. For this reason, they are often used as live food. Once the snails can reproduce without any problems, they become a never-ending source of food for pond fish.

Multiplication

Propagating the bladder snails is just as easy as general care, but there are a few things you need to watch out for to keep the population from spiraling out of control. Since the animals are hermaphrodites, it does not matter whether you only start reproduction have female or male specimens in the pond, this will later be done by the snails themselves customized. The following properties must be present for propagation:

• Water temperature: at least 20 ° C, the higher the more effective, but not above 30 ° C
• live aquatic plants to attach the eggs to

The aquatic plants are essential for the bladder snails. Without this they cannot reproduce and after a while your pond will be freed from the snails again. They have an average life expectancy of four to six months and as soon as there are not enough plants available for oviposition, the population stagnates extremely. Therefore, you should not only have dead plant debris or algae in the pond. Even one plant is enough here. The propagation happens as follows:

1. Despite the hermaphroditism, two animals are needed. These swap their sex as necessary.

2. After fertilization, the female changes her sex and, as a male, lays five to 50 eggs as clutches on the plants.

3. The eggs mature for about a week until the young hatch fully developed.

4. Sexual maturity develops over about four to five weeks, depending on the warmth of the water.

5. The animals can then reproduce again and maintain the population.

Tip: If the snails continue to reproduce at a rapid pace without stopping, there is a reason for this. If the bladder snails become a pure nuisance, the fish or crustaceans in the pond are fed too often and the excess feed ensures that the animals reproduce too quickly.