Snail Acclimation, Help please...

[Jobiwan]

Everything I have read indicates that slow acclimation is important with snails, but it is standard practice with large quantities to ship them in minimal/no water, usually bagged and wrapped in damp newpaper. Expense of shipping them in mutiple bags with water and minimal crowding rules out this option, and if you crowd them in a bag with water it is so polluted in 24 hours that you will probably get some mortality there. I can see where floating for a bit for temp acclimation might make be reasonable, but slowly dripping water on a bucket of dry snails makes no sense to me, it's not as if doing that will gradually introduce them to different water conditions. Any ideas?

 

[NaH2O]

You'll just need to temperature acclimate them by floating in some water and that's it. They'll be ready to go. Shipping them in wet paper is better than shipping them in water. You can read more about the whys to this in the first post of this thread (more specifically, the third quote): Let's Talk About ~Snails~

Hope this helps answer your question

 

[Ed Hahn]

Joe,
I use to place snails onto a piece of plastic/egg crate and let them walk into water. I have done this will very little loss of Golden Astreas. It worked for me.

 

[Jobiwan]

Thanks guys, appreciate the info. Just read quote three, I'm still confused, Packed damp or not, wouldn't a radical change from the previous salinity still result in all the ruptured kidneys etc mentioned???

 

[Jobiwan]

Ah, I read further on that snails osmoregulate to NSW salinity levels, when shipped damp, now it all makes sense, Great thread Nikki, I'll go back to that and finish it