Bladder snail

Care at a glance

Overview

These are solitary grazers, though you rarely end up with just one. They work the bottom and the glass, mostly at night, eating algae, detritus, and dead plant matter rather than healthy plants. They tolerate a huge range, roughly 14 to 30 C and a pH from slightly acidic to fairly hard alkaline. No special feeding needed; tank leftovers and algae keep them going.

In the wild

Bladder snails turn up in just about every kind of still or slow freshwater, from ponds and ditches to lakes and stream edges, originally across Europe and now worldwide. They favor spots thick with plants and organic muck, which is both their food and their cover. In a tank they need nothing special and will live happily in almost any setup.

Good to know

This is a small air-breathing snail in the family Physidae, with a thin amber, left-coiling shell up to about 1.5 cm. Instead of gills it uses a simple lung, so it can cope with low-oxygen water. Each snail is a hermaphrodite carrying both sets of reproductive organs. The species is Least Concern but can become invasive outside its native range.

Common questions

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