Mystery Snail

 Quick Care Facts

• Care Level: Easy   • Temperament: Peaceful   • Maximum Size: 6"
• Minimum Tank Size: 55 gallons   • Water Conditions: 65-82° F, pH 6.0-8.0, KH 3-8
• Color Forms: White, Tan, Yellow, Blue, Black   • Diet: Omnivore   • Origin: South America, Central America, Southeastern US
• Family: Ampullariidae   • Species: Snails   • Aquarium Type: Snails

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Mystery Snails are commonly found within the aquarium hobby, and due to their availability, bright coloration and ease of care have also become quite popular with many freshwater aquarium hobbyists. Mystery Snails have a very mixed following with one group of hobbyists loving them, while other hobbyists have come to despise them all together.

While they are attractive and are incredible consumers of algae, they do come with some negative traits as well. Due to their healthy appetite they can grow very large and reach sizes upwards of 6 inches, which only compounds the negatives against them. While the pros and cons of this species are very real, the key to keeping the Mystery Snail is keeping them in a suitable environment where their positives can be enjoyed and their negatives minimized.

Mystery Snails come in a variety of colors and shell patterns including brown, tan, white or yellow and even blue, purple, pink, and jade, with or without banding on their shells. They exhibit different coloration between their bodies and shells with distinct contrasts like purple bodies and yellow and white shells being quite common. Mystery snails are sold within the aquarium hobby under a variety of names including the golden Mystery snail, ivory snail, blue mystery snail, golden Mystery Snail and most likely others as well.

Mystery Snails do best in aquarium environments that take into account their strong appetites for algae and other vegetable matter along with their large size. They have an appetite for more than just algae as they will readily consume vegetable matter, invertebrate pellets and some live plants as well if sufficient algae or other more desirable foodstuffs are not available. They will also out compete many other invertebrate species for food, as they use their size to push other invertebrates like shrimp away from food that falls to the substrate.

Mystery Snails have very healthy appetites and will quickly turn to other foodstuffs if algae is not available. It is for this reason that they are not recommended for many planted aquariums as they can put a lot of pressure on delicate or slow growing plant species.

While Mystery Snails prefer algae, they will readily consume vegetables, plants, fish foods, brine shrimp, insects and even dead fish or other decaying matter that they come across while scavenging the aquarium bottom. If you keep this species with live plants be sure to provide them algae wafers, vegetable based sinking pellets or pieces of vegetable so that they will not turn on the plants living in the aquarium.

In the home aquarium, Mystery Snails are more active at night, while during the day they will usually stay in more shaded or darker area of the aquarium. When it is night time, the Mystery snail becomes active and engages in behaviors relating to feeding, as well as mating and laying eggs.

They are very easy to breed and if reasonable aquarium conditions of warm water temperatures and clean water are met, they will most likely breed to the point where excess specimens will need to be removed from the aquarium.