Care Guides

Plastic Tub

Plastic tubs are practical, inexpensive, and lightweight. However, they are not ready to use straight away and require modifications. To ensure good ventilation, you have to drill holes in the tub so your snails get enough air. Depending on the material, you might not be able to look well into the tub from the side. Also, the plastic often becomes cloudy over time. Another disadvantage is that you can only clean and feed from above with tubs, which can be particularly annoying when cleaning.

A big advantage of plastic tubs, however, is their stackability. If you want to keep several species over time, this is very practical. Please note, however, that plastic tubs have a maximum side length of 80 cm and are therefore not suitable for all species.

Aquarium

Aquariums are only suitable to a limited extent for keeping snails. It is very difficult to ensure adequate ventilation, as carbon dioxide accumulates at the bottom, which can cause the animals to suffocate, even if there are holes in the lid. Like the plastic tub, you also have to clean and feed from above here. In addition, aquariums are relatively heavy. An advantage, however, is the good availability in hardware stores, pet shops, or even second-hand. Overall, however, we tend to advise against using an aquarium for snails.

Terrarium

A terrarium with sliding doors is the best choice for keeping snails. Choose a terrarium with an aluminum profile and avoid models with woven mesh, such as those from Exoterra, as these do not hold humidity well. It is best to tape off the upper aluminum profile with packing tape to preserve the moisture better. Ventilation takes place via the doors, which usually have another aluminum profile integrated. This also allows carbon dioxide to "flow out" well.

Terrariums are available in many sizes, so you can optimally consider the needs of your snails. A minor disadvantage is that the substrate can only be filled up to a certain height.

Heating

To bring the terrarium to the right temperature, you should install a heat mat or a ceramic heat emitter (CHE) in the terrarium. A heat mat is suitable for terrariums and tubs up to 80 cm. For larger terrariums, you should install a CHE with a lamp cage. Especially with the lamp, a controller with a temperature sensor is necessary so that you can set the temperature precisely. A heat mat can usually also be used without a controller, as many heat mats have a built-in thermostat. In addition, you need a thermometer to monitor the temperature regularly.

Humidity

It is possible to install a rain system in the terrarium. However, these are often quite expensive and can cause the terrarium to turn into a swamp if not adjusted correctly. Fogging machines are generally advised against, as they are likely unpleasant for the snails and can potentially lead to diseases. Controlling the humidity can be done via a digital hygrometer, although these are often inaccurate.

The best and most cost-effective way is a simple spray bottle. A hygrometer is not strictly necessary for this. A good indicator is the water condensing on the glass: If you see condensation there, the humidity is ideal.

Lighting

The snails themselves do not need additional light, as they are crepuscular and like it dark. For you, and possibly for plants in the terrarium, however, lighting can be useful. You can attach LED lighting or simply use the ambient light. However, make sure to turn off the light at night, either manually or with a timer. If you use a different light source, please consider its heat emission, if applicable, to keep the temperature in the terrarium stable.

Substrate

Various materials can be used as substrate: forest humus, unfertilized potting soil, coco coir, or tropical terrarium soil. Ensure that potting soil is absolutely unfertilized, and opt for high-quality soil. The cheapest variant is often less suitable. With forest humus and potting soil, there is an increased risk of unwanted accompanying flora and fauna. Fungi, plants, insects, as well as other snails and beetles can appear due to the warm climate in the terrarium.

To avoid this, it is recommended to disinfect the soil before use. This can be done, for example, at 100 degrees Celsius in the oven or in smaller quantities in the microwave. For a start, we recommend "dead" soil like coco coir or terrarium soil. You can always switch to other types of substrate later if you wish.

Adding Calcium to the Soil

With any substrate, you should ensure a neutral pH value so that the shells of your snails are not damaged and the animals feel comfortable. An acidic soil can attack the snail's calcareous shell. Although this does not harm the animals immediately, it weakens the shell over time and impairs its appearance. To achieve a neutral pH value in the soil, you have to add calcium to the substrate. Pure calcium carbonate, feed calcium, lawn calcium, dolomite lime, or algae lime are suitable for this.

The amount can be dosed by feel: For about 9 liters of coco coir, approx. 100 to 200 g (about a handful) of calcium works quite well. The most important thing is that you add calcium to the substrate at all. You can tell there is too much calcium if the soil turns very white. In that case, just mix in a little more soil or humus.

In addition, adding healing earth and crushed oyster shell can improve the soil quality. You can also dose this by feel.

Clean-up Crew

To make the soil of your terrarium more bioactive, you can add springtails and/or dwarf white isopods, Panda isopods, or other isopod species. You can find our clean-up crew here. This way, after some time, you will achieve a self-cleaning terrarium in which no mold forms and you have to collect less to no snail poop. Such little helpers have proven themselves in snail keeping. Should there ever be too many, you can collect the excess clean-up crew and, for example, give them away or sell them.

Moss, Branches, Leaves, etc.

The snail terrarium should be set up as naturally as possible, for which materials like branches, tree bark, forest leaves, and moss are ideal. These things can generally be found in the forest. Please note, however, that many types of moss are protected. Removing such plants is not only illegal but can also harm the ecosystem. Therefore, strictly inform yourself beforehand on the internet or with the forester whether you are allowed to take materials from the forest.

If you bring materials from the forest, you must disinfect them, either at approx. 100 degrees Celsius in the oven or for a few minutes in the microwave. Otherwise, you could bring unwanted insects into the terrarium and possibly even harmful species for your snails. Alternatively, you can purchase cork branches, cork bark, or sphagnum moss online or in pet stores for a few euros.

Plants

You can put many different plants into the snail terrarium. Basically, anything you can buy as a terrarium plant is suitable. Bear in mind, however, that your snails have no sense of aesthetics: plants might be eaten, dug up, or simply "flattened". You can also use this to your advantage, for example by planting herb pots directly into the terrarium and offering them as a food source. Alternatively, you can try using the most robust plants possible.

Slightly toxic plants like pothos (Epipremnum aureum) are usually not a problem for snails. They might be nibbled on, but do not harm the snails. The animals normally realize themselves when something doesn't agree with them and stop eating. There are also many inedible plants in nature. However, you should not put highly toxic plants or those with thorns in the terrarium. Another option is artificial plants if you want to completely avoid live plants.

If you use live plants, you need a light source for your terrarium so that the plants can thrive.

Bathing Bowl

You should provide your snails with a bathing bowl, as many snails like to bathe on their own terms. However, it is important that you never take the snails out to "shower" or bathe them. The animals do not like that at all. If they "stretch" under water, they are not trying to relax, but to escape, because they think they are drowning.

Instead, provide a sufficiently large bowl of water. The water should only be as deep as the snail's foot is high, since they breathe through a breathing pore near the shell opening and not at the head. For extra "bathing fun", you can add catappa leaves, healing earth, or calcium to the water. Depending on the size of the bowl, branches also make good climbing aids. The snails can also use the bowl for drinking, by the way.

Fruits and Vegetables

You can offer your snails almost anything from the fruit and vegetable section. Many keepers avoid cabbage and citrus fruits, as snails often show little interest in them. We don't feed these either. It is important to largely avoid nutrient-poor foods like cucumbers. Although snails love cucumbers, they contain hardly any nutrients and are like chocolate for us: tasty, but not very healthy. Instead, feed a varied diet and gladly also seasonally. Pumpkin, lettuce, eggplant, sweet potato, tomato, zucchini, apple, mushrooms, mango, and melon are just a few examples of fruits and vegetables that snails like to eat.

After all, farmers use products to keep snails away from their vegetables, and such substances could be harmful. Make sure to feed a varied diet. Whether you offer a plate with different fruits and vegetables or something different every few days is up to you. However, it should not always be the same. You can leave the fruit and vegetables in the terrarium for a few days, as long as they don't mold or start to ferment. In these cases, you should dispose of them.

Protein

Protein is just as important for snails as it is for us. Once a week you should feed protein, either plant-based or animal-based. Animal protein is usually offered in the form of Gammarus (freshwater shrimp), which is well accepted by most snails and also has a long shelf life. If you place Gammarus in the terrarium, take it out after 24 hours at the latest, as it will otherwise start to smell and generally won't be eaten by the snails anymore.

Without regular protein intake, snails can become cannibalistic and eat their conspecifics. Besides Gammarus, you can also offer shrimp, silkworms, mealworms, or similar. Fresh meat is also possible, but is often not well received. Nettle is suitable as a plant-based protein source – such as our Nettle Topper. Nevertheless, animal protein is preferable.

Calcium Intake

Calcium is essential for the life of your snails, because without calcium they cannot build their shells. Similar to protein, snails can become cannibalistic if they lack calcium. They nibble on the shells of their conspecifics and even on their own shell to at least partially cover their calcium needs. Calcium is not only important for the shell building of snails, but also for egg laying.

You can offer your snails various calcium sources, such as cuttlebone, calcium blocks, crushed oyster shell, eggshells, and more.

Supplementary Food

Supplementary food is an often-discussed topic in snail keeping. Some keepers think it is unnecessary, while others even believe it harms the animals or "fattens" them up. We believe that the quantity is key. Supplementary food should not be offered more than once a week. At this dosage, it will not fatten the snails and is proven not to harm them. Rather, it can help to close potential nutrient gaps and supports healthy shell building. Popular options are, for example, our Snail Mixes.

Do not force your snails to eat the supplementary food, and always offer normal food as well. The snails decide for themselves whether they want to eat the supplementary food. The same applies to feed calcium. Also, note that powdered supplementary food should not be fed dry. Always dissolve it in water so that a paste or "soup" is created. Do not sprinkle the supplementary food over the normal food, so that the snails have the choice. Thus, supplementary food is a good option to balance out any feeding mistakes.

Reproduction

Since snails, as hermaphrodites, possess both reproductive organs, keeping them in groups of about 3 animals inevitably leads to reproduction. When reproduction begins and how many eggs are laid depends on the respective species. It can be between 2 and 300 eggs. To avoid having hundreds of snails in your terrarium in a short time, you should check for eggs every 14 days once they reach sexual maturity. The best way to do this is to dig your fingers into the soil at a distance of a few centimeters. If you hit a nest, you will feel and hear it. If you are unsure, you can also dig through the substrate completely.

If you have found a nest, you must collect the eggs and put them in the freezer for about 48 hours to destroy them. This step is difficult for many keepers, but necessary, as the unborn snails are hardly developed at this point.

Even if you let the snails hatch, selection will be necessary. Weak or non-growing animals must also be frozen. You can find more about this in the Breeding section. Preventing reproduction by "solitary confinement" is morally questionable and by no means species-appropriate. In addition, being hermaphrodites can lead to parthenogenesis (virgin birth). You can dispose of the frozen eggs in the household or organic waste.

Breeding

If you are thinking about breeding snails, there are essential rules to preserve good genetics and to give future keepers just as much joy as you have. Should you decide to let a clutch hatch, always keep the entire clutch. Only taking out 20 to 30 eggs is not an option, as the probability of selecting animals with poor genetics is high. Your goal in breeding should be to keep the best animals in the end.

When you breed snails, regular selection of the small snails is required. This means culling weak animals. We deliberately emphasize this so drastically to make it clear to you what breeding means before you get into a situation that you cannot handle. Not selecting the animals is not an option, as this significantly impairs genetics and leads to stunted mini-snails. In addition, the quality of life of the animals that should actually be culled deteriorates.

Snails lay so many eggs because the chances of survival in nature are low. From a clutch of 300 eggs, perhaps 5% reach adulthood. Most die due to natural deformities or dwarfism. In a protected terrarium, however, these animals do not die on their own, as they have food and protection and no predators. Therefore, you must regularly cull animals that have problems building their shells or are significantly smaller than the rest. Even if it is difficult, species preservation comes first.

Multiple Snail Species in One Terrarium

In short: No.

Long answer: Many snail keepers find several species interesting but don't necessarily want to set up multiple terrariums. Therefore, the idea quickly arises to put different species together. As you can guess from the short version, this is not a good idea, and there are many reasons for this. The care parameters only rarely match. A temperature that is ideal for one species can be too cold or too warm for another. The same goes for humidity.

In addition, the animals are often of different sizes, which can be problematic during cohabitation and possible collisions. Another problem is hybridization: Different species could mate and produce genetically inferior hybrids, which are usually barely viable. In snail keeping, however, we want to keep purebred animals to preserve the genetics, as mentioned in the section on Breeding.

Also consider that some snail species occur thousands of kilometers apart in nature. Cohabitation brings them no advantages whatsoever. To do the snails and yourself a favor, keep each species in its own terrarium so you can perfectly cater to the individual needs of the animals.

Beetles and Insects

Animals like isopods and springtails can be kept with your snails without any problems. The exact isopod species usually does not matter. However, you should refrain from keeping other insects or arachnids such as flower beetles, phasmids, or spiders. Here, too, there are often problems with different care parameters, and cohabitation brings more suffering than benefit to both species.