The temperament of our pets can be pretty weird. Most animals have certain things worth fighting for, and sometimes, even dying for. It could be food, territory, a mate, or defense— enough to fight down and dirty. However, mystery snails are known for their docile nature, making them the few animals that don’t hassle. It would take a discussion like this to truly know the temperament of your mystery snails, what drives them to anger, and how they defend themselves.
Mystery snails do indeed fight, but very rarely. In the worst-case scenarios, they may end up eating themselves up. The reason why mysteries fight or attack themselves may vary depending on the snail itself. It could be due to curiosity, to secure a potential mate, or simply just because they feel like it.
Before you can conclude that your mystery snails are fighting, you must be clear that they’re not copulating. These look entirely similar and usually, due to mysteries being docile, mating is mostly mistaken for fighting more than the other way around.
Are My Mystery Snails Fighting Or Mating? How To Tell?
Distinguishing between mating and fighting can be a bit problematic because they both entail some sort of mounting. The trick is to look closely at their intentions and you can easily differentiate one action from the other. Here’s how to tell:
- During fights, snails push themselves on contact instead of trying to mount themselves and maintain the connection. Fighting mystery snails are mostly interested in throwing their opponents off balance such as on a surface or off the wall of their tank.
- Fighting mystery snails engage for shorter periods than they would if they were mating. It’s usually a brief encounter that goes on for a few minutes until they exhaust and disperse themselves. Unlike fighting, mystery snails mating can last for several hours before they disengage.
- The result of mystery snails fighting is usually a broken or cracked shell. If they throw their opponents onto hard surfaces several times, this will result in injured shells as opposed to a normal and harmless aftermath.
5 Major Reasons Why Your Mystery Snails Fight
Mystery snails fight rarely and hardly out of ill feelings. They have a very low temperament that influences their reaction in situations such as mating or simply existing with other snails. Some situations may lead to your pets fighting each other or exerting unwanted pressure that can be harmful to themselves. To fully understand this, here are the specific reasons why mystery snails may fight:
1. They May Be Negatively Curious
Sometimes, when mystery snails encounter a new snail brought in from a different tank, they may swarm toward it to study the newbie reacting to the different scents it carries. In a case I’m aware of, the current inhabitants of the tank unknowingly attacked the new mystery snail in an attempt to explore the new chemicals they perceived. Unfortunately, the owner came around and found the new snail they had introduced to the tank dead and unshelled. Turns out it was mistakenly killed and then gobbled up by the tank inhabitants out of sheer curiosity.
Although this is a rare situation, acclimating the new snail before introducing it to the tank would have prevented the problem.
2. They Are Slightly Irritated
Another reason why mystery snails may fight is due to slight irritation which again is dependent on the individual snails. Rarely, some snails can harbor ill feelings towards anything that bothers them. They recognize the interaction through the unique scents each snail emits, and can recognize it whenever it’s encountered. So, if they cross paths too often and develop these negative feelings towards themselves, they may attempt to remove each other from the vicinity by pushing it away instead of retreating to their shells.
3. The Tank Is Too Small
If you’re placing more than 6 mystery snails into a 5-gallon tank with plants and decor inclusive, you’re simply setting up your snails for war. They will struggle for everything such as food, space, and a mating partner. This will lead to extreme stress which can even kill them more easily than fighting would. Mystery snails are active mollusks; they like to wander about and interact with their surroundings. If they are over-cramped, they’d keep getting in the way of their co-habitants and exploring themselves in aggressive ways.
4. Food Is Limited
If resources are low, your mystery snails may resort to other means such as licking on the shells of their tankmates and potentially stressing the weakest in the group. If this goes on, the weak snail may die from stress and get eaten by its mates. While mystery snails are not cannibalistic, they are detritivores. This means they enjoy feasting on decaying matter which in this case, includes the dead snail.
5. They May Be Seeking Calcium Supply
Mystery snails like to feed on calcium-rich foods such as fishbones and shells from other animals. In some cases, you may find your pets hitchhiking on other snails’ shells. When they do this, they’re essentially scraping on the shell eating the calcium bits they can find. This could be dangerous to weaker snails potentially killing them even if the interaction looks harmless.
How To Stop Your Mystery Snails From Fighting
The best way to prevent mystery snails from fighting is to reduce the chances of it happening. Mysteries are peaceful creatures. If there’s any situation leading to a fight, it’s mostly due to cramped space or limited resources.
Create More Space For Your Snails
Mystery snails require space to live comfortably. If you struggle with space allocation, I recommend allocating a gallon of space to each snail. So, instead of cramming 7 snails in a small tank, I suggest going for a 10-gallon tank to allow more area for plants and decor. This way, your pets can live out of each other’s way expressing their natural temperaments peacefully.
Provide Your Snails Enough Food
Mysteries are active eaters that need to be target-fed to live their potential lives. Leaving them to the mercy of algae is simply starving your pets unknowingly and causing them to compete. They may begin to stress their cohabitants by mounting and eating their shells or begin bullying the weakest snail in the group. Though they are not programmed to kill, they can seek food in unusual places which could be another unfortunate snail.
Place More Females Than Males In The Aquarium
When the conditions are right for mating, such as food availability, correct temperature, and a potential mate, mystery snails could mate infinitely sometimes to death. During this period, the males may be aggressive towards themselves seeking to secure a mating partner.
Also, pushing and overturning themselves are usually noted even toward the females especially when your tank is overcrowded. It’s best to reduce the number of males or create a larger tank for them all so that they can coexist peacefully.
If you’re wondering which mystery snail is male or female, just take note of the one that’s doing the mounting. The relaxed snail getting mounted is the female.
Make Sure A Calcium Source Is Always Available
Calcium is necessary for your snails to grow healthy shells, and your pets know this. During their adventures, they are also seeking calcium supply to help strengthen their mobile shelly homes. All you need to do is throw cuttlefish bone into the tank and your snails will have a calcium source instead of mounting on each other and feeding off themselves.
In most cases the mounting is harmless, but it could be dangerous to the weaker snail leading to more drastic outcomes. The best thing to do is present your pets with their needs so that the chances of attacking themselves are too low to exist.
