White Wizard Snail

Care at a glance

Overview

White wizard snails are peaceful, pale-shelled snails that spend much of their time burrowing through sand and sifting it for algae, biofilm, and detritus. They leave healthy plants alone and get along with fish, shrimp, and other snails, and a single snail needs no company. Give them a soft sand bed to plow through, moderately hard water to keep the shell solid, and no copper, which is toxic to snails. They feed on fine matter in the substrate and can also filter tiny particles from the water with their gill. A tank of 40 liters or more with a deep sand bed suits them well.

In the wild

Filopaludina martensi is native to Southeast Asia, living in slow rivers, ponds, canals, and rice paddies with soft, silty, or sandy bottoms. It is an adaptable snail that settles into a tank held from about 22 to 26 c with a pH from 6.5 to 8. A deep, soft sand bed is the key feature, since the snail burrows and feeds within it much as it would in the wild. Gentle flow, some plants, and moderately hard, clean water keep it active and its shell in good shape.

Good to know

Filopaludina martensi is a large river snail in the family Viviparidae, which carries both a gill and a trapdoor operculum. It grows to around 5 cm with a rounded, pale, banded shell. Like others in the family it is a livebearer, brooding its young inside and giving birth to fully formed miniature snails rather than laying eggs. Reproduction is slow and the newborns are small and easily lost, so building up numbers in a tank is rated hard. Its gill doubles as a filter for catching fine food from the water.

Did you know

The white wizard snail is one of the few aquarium snails that filter feeds, drawing water across its gill to trap tiny particles as well as grazing the sand. It spends so much time buried that a tank can look empty until the snails surface to roam.

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