# Playful Snail??



## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

This isn't the first time I thought my snail was "playing" but I think I am seeing my YMSnail playing with things like rocks and his food (points to avatar). Ive seen it a couple of times and wondered.. what is he doing? Is this normal behavior for a snail? I also love to watch him "float" down to the bottom, he lets go of the glass and floats down to the bottom. My son gets a laugh out of this one.


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## Tankfull Tropicals (Feb 11, 2011)

danilykins said:


> This isn't the first time I thought my snail was "playing" but I think I am seeing my YMSnail playing with things like rocks and his food (points to avatar). Ive seen it a couple of times and wondered.. what is he doing? Is this normal behavior for a snail? I also love to watch him "float" down to the bottom, he lets go of the glass and floats down to the bottom. My son gets a laugh out of this one.


I take it you have a Mystery snail or Apple danilykins. Sounds cool. I have SAE that will play with me even. I can be sitting quietly and all I need to do is wiggle my fingers at the tank as if a wave. They have incredible eyesight and can see me do it even slightly. They wil start doing circles and shakeing their heads side to side sort of like Dolphins. I move closer and talk to them and they see my mouth move or maybe feel the vibration on the galss and get realy excited that I have noticed them. I have friends that say they only want to be feed but I never feed them during these times. My point is that we have NO idea what our fish are capable of and just as dogs will play why NOT fish and yes Snails too. *pc


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

I love to watch my apple snails gilde too. They are very tactile and manipulative, with that big muscular foot of theirs. If you think about it, they have to be kind of inquisitive and investigative in order to find food sources, it would be natural for them to be.


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## danilykins (Dec 22, 2010)

its very entertaining to watch him hug a leaf or rolling around some rocks. My snail started the size of a quarter, and now he is the size of a golf ball!! I love to see new growth on him, he seems very healthy and Im very happy with him. He is a great addition to the tank. If I wasn't scared of massive reproduction I would get more LOL


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

You don't need to be afraid, snail birth control is easy with apple snails because they lay all their eggs above the water line. Keep an eye on the area above the water around the edge of your tank, and remove the dry, styrofoam like egg cases when they appear (they are gooey inside, but if you're careful they're like a styrofoam peanut on the outside and just slide right off the glass) and you will have no babies. If they aren't someplace warm and moist they just don't hatch, so you can throw them in the trash with no worries. On the other hand, the babies are really cute, too, and you don't get nearly as many that survive with apple snails as you do with other kinds. I have five apple snails and have yet to have any surviving babies this year because my fish like to eat the babies.


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