FishProfiles.com Message Forums

How on earth do you sex an apple snail? Yes, I know you can wait till they are..., um, well you know But is there a simpler way?

Inky

this link might help- http://www.tronchaser.com/~cindi/ss.html

You can also see this link:- http://www.applesnail.net/



http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/s8xi5heh/my_photos
http://www.geocities.com/s8xi5heh/classic_blue.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buzaqq/
http://www.deathbydyeing.org/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Do I just pick them up and look? I thought that would hurt them?

Inky

You can hold applesnails. My boyfriend is always playing with the ones in my tank. They actually seem to have mild intelligence and will eventually learn to crawl around your hand instead of closing up. As long as your hand is wet enough. They'll also learn to come to the top of the tank when it's open and stick their mouths out of the water so you can hand feed them things like fish food pellet bits and vegetables. Make sure if you try to take them out of the tank you don't pull them off the glass too hard or the muscle that holds them in their shell can tear.

Checking for sexual organs out of the water takes alot of patience. You have to hold the snail upside down until it decides to open and if you've never handled them that could take quite awhile. I usually just wait till I see them mating or they are crawling on the glass competely open so I can see inside their shell. At one point I had ~50 in the tank so it only took me a few mins of watching them in the tank to determine a male and female of the color I wanted to breed.
There's a few other potential ways to tell gender and pictures here [link=http://applesnail.net/content/anatomy/reproduction.php]http://applesnail.net/content/anatomy/reproduction.php" style="COLOR: #C000C0[/link]

I had no idea you could "play" with them! How Cute!!!!


i wish I could get about 50, but my tank is 10g, and also houses 2 bettas, wich dont bother the snails ^_^

Inky