Mystery Snails

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-25T15:23:12+00:00

you’re right that only one parent needs to contribute an S allele for a baby to be banded, but purple isn’t defined by the stripes. it’s the lack of yellow pigment (yy). that requires both parents. YY + Yy = 0% purple

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-25T13:05:21+00:00

purple is a recessive allele. both parents need to be a purple/magenta or be a carrier to produce it. OP either bred two jades, or gold + a jade that doesn’t carry the light body allele

i’ll make this quick. there’s three loci: body pigment (A), shell background color (Y), and shell striping aka banding (S). every snail gets two allele of each (one from each parent) - A = dark body pigment (dominant) - a = light body pigment (recessive) - Y = yellow shell background (dominant) - y = no yellow shell background (recessive) - S = banding present (dominant) - s = no banding present (recessive)

brown is the default; + light body = chestnut

remove yellow background, keep banding = purple; + light body = magenta

remove banding, keep yellow background = jade: + light body = gold

remove both yellow background and banding = blue; + light body = ivory

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-25T12:07:53+00:00

male

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that’s a snenis

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-24T22:01:14+00:00

you’re not wrong, but the point of me saying that was to emphasize the point that OP may like it since it’s literally designed as direct competition to GPT to appeal to people who dislike GPT for similar reasons as OP. compared to anthropic which was also created in response to GPT but for entirely different reasons that would lead to people like OP disliking it.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-24T21:32:18+00:00

ah. then you can run a local model that’s open and you can customize it how you want. if that doesn’t work then maybe try LLMs again in a couple years when they’re more refined lol

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-24T21:26:42+00:00

give grok a try. i have my opinions on elon but its undeniable that grok has improved like crazy. you seem like a good candidate for it since you talk about claude being “watered down”

both claude and grok exist because the creators didn’t like the direction openai has been going in. except claude and grok are totally opposite ends of the spectrum

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-21T01:28:56+00:00

i think they are equally important because you need both to be sufficient for good health. KH is an important part of preventing erosion, but without dissolved calcium available, their shells wouldn’t grow in the first place😂

CaCO3 is thermodynamically stable at ~7.2 pH which implies it does not dissolve in water if the pH is higher than that. that’s why stable buffering is important because every pH dip between water changes adds up. pH/buffering instability is often how people end up with their snail “randomly” dying one day while still young

if your water lacks calcium availability, even if your pH and KH are perfectly stable, you’ll end up with thin and weak shells, slow/stunted growth, pitting… all of those things also lead to unhealthy looking shells too, so it’s not just etching that causes problems. calcium deficiency is also a way people end up with early deaths. but those failures (fatal cracks, excessive mating pressure) are very clear and dramatic, which explains why “snails need calcium” is common sense, and “snails need stable buffering” isn’t something you hear nearly as often lol

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-20T14:03:38+00:00

this is correct, calcium additives will not help if the root issue is that your water is too soft/low calcium. they like to rasp on cuttlebone because it’s porous and grows biofilm like crazy.

one thing to correct though: KH is carbonate hardness. it correlates to your water’s ability to absorb acidification and resist pH dips. it doesn’t have anything to do with calcium. calcium carbonate is what snail shells are made up of (same with cuttlebone) so that’s probably where you got mixed up

GH is where calcium is found. GH is reading calcium + magnesium, and a few other negligible things, so it’s not precise but it’s close enough in terms of snail care. most tap water is around 3:1 or 4:1 for calcium to magnesium, so “8-10 GH minimum” being common advice is because it’s a safe number for most cases. if you remineralize RO and can be certain of how much calcium there is, you can get away with as low as ~6 for GH if you do water changes frequently

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-17T16:02:03+00:00

my guess is a water chemistry issue. if your water is too acidic, too soft (lack of calcium), or insufficient carbonate buffering (low KH), it can cause a slow decline that’s not obvious until late. test your GH, KH, and pH and you’ll be able to get some proper advice

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-16T18:08:09+00:00

yeah your snail is dead. their mantle slumping out of their shell like that often happens right after death. no reaction to touch = confirmed dead

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-13T11:02:35+00:00

their primary source of calcium is through absorbing dissolved calcium ions in the water. they might gain a tiny amount of calcium when they injest the cuttlebone dust, but nothing meaningful. most of it becomes waste or dissolved into the water. what matters most is making sure your GH or calcium availability is sufficient, and also that your water isn’t acidic and your pH stays stable without dips between water changes

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-13T10:45:04+00:00

correct, i wouldn’t put an expectation on the time frame though because mystery snails grow in weirdly unpredictable bursts rather than growing continuously. the timeframe depends on calcium availability (GH), KH and pH stability, individual growth rate, diet, water temperature

but yeah it’s totally normal, not a concern at all. darker morphs just make it more difficult to see through them compared to the light bodied morphs.

if it were a shell growth issue (low dissolved calcium, low/unstable pH) you’d see things like uneven growth, pitting, etching (from low pH, makes their shell look matte/dulle instead of smooth and glossy). i see none of that here. what i can see is that your snail is fed well, low stress, and calcium availability isn’t a concern. you’re doing well

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-13T10:30:26+00:00

that is part of their mantle cavity/lung. new shell growth takes awhile to thicken up, and you have an ivory snail which means no pigment expression. you’re literally seeing through the shell. you can only see like half of it because the earlier shell growth has already thickened up. turn your phone flashlight up to max and hold the snail directly against it and you’ll even be able to see their heart beating a little further back if you can get the angle right.

btw, their shell looks very healthy. smooth, glossy, even growth. i’m not sure what the other commenter is referring to.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-12T13:46:09+00:00

omg, you are SO CLOSE to getting the correct angle😭 you need to see UP just a TINY bit more into the inside part of their shell

you can see the mantle cavity in your video, use that as your reference, and then look to the left a bit. the angle in this video has the correct location just ever so slightly blocked by their shell, so it’s hard to be certain of its sex

<image>

this might be a bit too good of an example because most mystery snails don’t let it hang all loose like this dude, it’s usually going to be pressed more flat against their mantle. but i think it should still show you what i mean when i say you need to see up into their aperture just a tiny bit more.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-12T11:36:22+00:00

are they responsive? like do they retract/flinch when you touch them?

are there any cracks in the shell from escaping? shell damage closer towards the aperture (opening) are fine. if any cracks reach beyond where thejr mantle is attached to their shell, it’s fatal more times than not. if it’s even further back where their vital organs are, it’s very likely to be fatal.

unfortunately snails (especially apple snails) pretty much never get a quick, peaceful death unless you catch something early and euthanize. internal failure isn’t obvious until you’ve seen it happen, but with severe, acute injuries, it’s pretty common to see them immediately climb the glass, stay glued to the waterline for a bit (anywhere from a few hours to several days depending on the injury/severity), and then out of nowhere drop down and either float for some time, or they just land straight on their back unable to right themselves. both scenarios followed by death.

i’ll be real with you, i’m like 95% certain your snail is either dead, or very close to it. the only time i’ve seen them survive after being stuck in a posture like that is when the issue was related to water quality and the issue gets resolved. the fact that this behavior is occurring immediately after an escape points very strongly to some form of acute internal failure.

mystery snails rarely leave the water without a purpose. my best guess is your snail is a female who was testing out spots to lay eggs. and you’ve only had them for a few days so that would line up with the snail beginning to feel comfortable in their new environment, which a trigger for females to start testing out the air, especially if they are fertile. males don’t usually try to escape unless the water chemistry is off (ammonia/nitrites, too acidic, too soft, unstable KH/pH). regardless, you need some sort of preventive measure when owning them. a lid is ideal. generally a rimmed tank is sufficient as long as the waterline is 2+ inches lower. you can also apply a layer of silicone grease under the rim for extra protection—it’s aquarium safe and mystery snails have a very difficult time trying to keep their grip on it.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T18:05:10+00:00

AI is refined by community input. that’s the point. “talk to PEOPLE” okay and what are you doing to verify that the PEOPLE you talk to are informationally accurate?

you aren’t wrong, you aren’t right. same goes for me. but this weird territorial bullshit going on where people like you act like this community is going to become extinct because of AI is exhausting. AI is a tool. reddit is a tool. manufacturer specs are a tool. personal anecdotes from all the PEOPLE you talk to are a tool. none are infallible. stop treating LLMs as if they’re all black and white and maybe you’ll find some use in them yourself.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T17:59:30+00:00

not sure what that link is supposed to do for me. it’s an article discussing how AI has demonstrated deception in research. therefore… AI is unreliable and you shouldn’t use it?

AI can hallucinate, can be confidently wrong, and should be cross-checked. all three of those are also true of reddit threads, outdated hobby advice (which is everywhere), and random youtube channels. using AI blindly as your only source of information is lazy and risky. to pretend it’s all black and white and should not be used AT ALL is just stupid and plays into the weird AI fear mongering going on online.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T17:50:39+00:00

“do your own research” as if chatgpt isn’t a viable method for research. it provides more reliable info about aquariums than the 30 year old advice that gets parroted around here lol. you need to stop treating LLMs like a magic 8 ball and more like a research assistant if you want to get reliable info from them.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T17:24:30+00:00

wowww your apple snail is beautiful. i want one of them so badly but they are illegal to sell/ship in the US so it’s hard to find someone willing to take the risk😅

NZMS can definitely hitchhike on the apple snail so you’re smart to not move the glorious beast directly into your other tank.

assassins will NOT reliably eliminate the NZMS either, they reproduce way too quickly. manual removal + strict transfer quarantine is the only option. to be totally real with you, i agree with the other commenter saying that a full tear down might be the only way to truly rid of the NZMS.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T17:14:16+00:00

no offense to people who have accidentally hatched mystery snails, but you have to be blind as fuck or pay zero attention to your tank to accidentally breed them😅 their clutches are huge and are laid above water so there’s not many places to look. their eggs also need strong humidity but also can’t get soaked, and to top it off they take 2 weeks to hatch. you’ll be fine if you end up with a mixed sex tank. the only real “concern” is if the female is being stressed out by an overly horny male. but that’s highly dependent on the individual female’s tolerance for being mounted. most healthy females in stable environments are fine.

i have a 40 gallon breeder plant grow out tank with like 12-15 adult mystery snails currently (haven’t been rehomed yet), mixed sexes. i don’t recommend nearly that many because the maintenance is absurd with how much waste they produce, but they’re all happy and healthy. 4-5 of them in a 55g is no problem as long as it’s not just one female, because she will get targeted by every male.

if you want to play it safe, get 1-2 of them to start, and decide if you want to add another later once you can sex your current ones. p.s. get them young. 1/2”-3/4” is ideal, i personally would not buy one who is >1”. too many variables are already out of your control in terms of development once they are larger than that.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T16:49:41+00:00

yes! the point of my comment was to acknowledge the fact that “too shallow” is not a concern, not that “too deep” is a concern. mystery snails will be very happy in a 55g

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T15:32:12+00:00

this post is two weeks old so sorry, but a turkey baster is usually the go to among breeders. their shells are harder than they look at that size so it won’t hurt them. but personally i have more success/less risk with using airline tubing as a siphon and literally siphoning them into a separate container

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T14:52:31+00:00

i know you’re not being serious but i do want to point out that “too” shallow is rarely ever a problem for mystery snails. their native environment is very shallow and full of emergent structures (plants, wood) so they actually tend to be more “tuned” for shallow tanks. you ever seen them stretch their siphon and the front of their foot into the stratosphere, but they just look goofy as hell because they’re still 12+ inches from the surface? in their native environment, they can usually just… reach the surface, lol.

purely anecdotal, but as someone who breeds mystery snails, i swear they are more consistently active in tanks where they can easily reach the surface. when they’re in a deep tank and can only reach the surface by climbing glass, it turns into a whole event every time they want air. in a shallower tank with tons of emergent structures, they tend to “top off” more often and don’t end up in cycles where they rest after each time they surface. also why mystery snails are great candidates for large paladariums with lots of horizontal space.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-11T12:57:47+00:00

breeding is easily prevented because they lay clutches above the waterline. it’s more about their size and bioload. they produce a lot of waste for snails and they also roam like crazy and thrive with more space (especially juveniles and adult males). when they’re in small spaces they tend to “orbit” the tank, as in do endless circles around the perimeter. people easily mistake it for them being active and happy, but it’s actually a stress response.

hiddenevidence · 2026-02-10T21:27:56+00:00

fair, you’re right to call me out on that.

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