Mystery Snail LifeSpan: 10 Tips For Long Life You’ve Never Considered

Keeping pet mystery snails without an idea of their life expectancy is like taking on a baking competition without an idea of basic measurements. You’d be utterly confused at every step of their growth, having you second-guess yourself in the milestones you make with them. For instance, deciphering whether a behavior is due to old age or a sickness; I’ve met several cases where a mystery snail dies early from a bad tank setup or stress a few months over a year but is mistaken for a life well-lived by the robustly pleased owners. So, how long do mystery snails live?

Most mystery snails live from 1 to 3 years if properly cared for and can even get to 5 years if all their boxes are ticked. At around 1.5 years, they reach their peak of maturity and start the downhill slope to old age where they either die peacefully or add a couple of years depending on the quality of their life.

In this article, we’ll be going through the lifespan of mystery snails to help you answer all your questions concerning their growth and show how to get your pet to live long!

The Journey From Hatchling To Adult Mystery Snails With Time Stamps

If you know a bit about how mystery snails reproduce, you’ll know that they’re sexual by nature. You need two snails of opposite sexes to copulate and make babies. The egg (embryo) stage is where the life cycle starts, which begins with a clutch laid above the waterline by the female snail.

Hatchling Stage (size: 1 to 2 millimeters)

Mystery snails hatch 14 days to 4 weeks after the eggs are laid under the right circumstances, which entails proper humidity and temperature. When the clutch hatches, the baby snails, also known as globs or tadpoles, begin their growth. They are ravenous eaters for their extremely tiny size and would feast on anything edible to grow their shells. This stage lasts a week or two.

Larva Stage (size: 2 to 3 millimeters)

After a week of hatching, the mystery snail globs become larvae. They’re more agile and look a bit defined compared to the globs. Their shells and feet grow darker and less translucent, and you’ll notice dots and splashes of color on their shells as their pigment begins to form. This stage lasts an extra two weeks before the snails hop on the next train.

Juvenile Stage (size: 6 to 8 millimeters)

The juveniles are a bit bigger, swifter, and darker than the larvae. They are also more active and curious. They start to properly explore their surroundings and graze on surfaces hunting for food. You can identify this stage by the extra pigment of color; now instead of dots here and there, you notice swirls following the spiral of their little shells. They remain in this stage for 4 weeks before reaching full adulthood.

Adult Stage (size: 2 inches or 5 centimeters)

At 8 weeks, your mystery snail has entered adulthood. They would be roughly 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7.6 centimeters) in size and appear more colorful than ever. However, their shells are still pretty tender as they’re newly adults requiring more calcium and time for their shells to thicken properly. Sometimes, they may grow bigger than usual depending on the temperature of their home. Warmer climates produce bigger mystery snails, and colder temperatures give them longer lives as they grow. I have explained more about this phenomenon later in the article.

Elderly Stage (same size or slightly bigger)

After 2 years, your mystery snail can be considered an elder. Most mysteries die at this age, which is quite normal. However, there’s the elite few that go on to live for 4 to 5 years before they give up the ghost. To get your snails to live this long requires consistency of proper care by you. It’s not impossible to give your snails a long life, and if you go through the right procedures, you’ll be able to get a few years with your snail.

The Transition Chart

The stepped area chart below gives you a visual representation of the transition between each stage. The number of weeks it takes for your mystery snail to leap from one stage to the other is displayed by the prominent blue line in the chart.

10 Great Tips To Give Your Mystery Snails Long Lives

Now that you’re conversant with their life cycles, you can immediately jump to the fun part. I’ll be sharing practical tips and tricks, including what to avoid, to ensure your pets live their longest lives under your care.

1. Colder Temperatures Increase Lifespans

The temperature requirement for a mystery snail aquarium is between 70°F to 80°F. Here, they’d be able to breed and sustain good health through and through. The catch is to bring it down a notch from 70°F to 73°F right from when they’re larvae till they grow into adult snails. Their growth will be a slow and steady process, but they tend to develop stronger shells and better immunity due to the slow growth.

Snails with stronger shells tend to live much longer than their counterparts as the chances of shell rot and injuries are reduced. Also, stronger immunity generally gives your snails a better chance of surviving through old age and the struggles that come with weaker muscles and heavier shells.

2. Keep A Lid On The Tank

Mystery snails are notorious for crawling out of their tanks and falling over either to their death or breaking their shells. The females usually fall over when they’re seeking a spot to lay their eggs since they lay above the waterline. Either way, their chances of survival after falling, if they prevail, are low.

3. Feed Your Mystery Snails More Of Fresh Food

Mystery snails need both plant-based and animal-based foods to survive. These foods provide protein, minerals, and vitamins for healthy growth throughout their lifespans. In most cases, processed foods like algae wafers and pellets are the go-to meals for mystery snails as they’re both nutritious and convenient for feeding. However, since you want your snail to outlive the majority of their age groups, you should employ fresh foods more often as an alternative.

Don’t even consider relying on tank algae for food as mystery snails are not good algae eaters. They may graze on the algae occasionally but will not get sustainable nutrients from them, which would only give you weaker snails that die within a year.

Examples of fresh foods for your mystery snails are blanched calcium-rich veggies like kale, broccoli, spinach, and collard greens, protein sources like strips of boiled unseasoned chicken, shrimp, or fish, and raw calcium sources like cuttlefish bones. These will keep your snails healthy, hearty, and strong!

An alternative is home-cooked snail food. They absolutely enjoy it, and it saves you the stress of figuring out rations for protein and veggies. It’s also absolutely nutritious and more affordable in the long run. Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of blanched vegetables (such as spinach, carrots, or zucchini).
• 1/4 cup of gelatin powder.
• 1/4 cup of baby food (optional, for added nutrition).
• 1/4 cup of calcium supplement (crushed cuttlebone or calcium powder).

Procedure:

1. Puree the blanched vegetables in a blender or food processor until smooth.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the gelatin powder with water according to the package instructions.
3. Combine the pureed vegetables, gelatin mixture, baby food, and calcium supplement in a saucepan.
4. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring continuously until the gelatin is fully dissolved.
5. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
6. Pour the mixture into ice cube trays or molds and refrigerate until set.
7. Once set, you can cut the Snello into small portions or leave it as individual cubes.

Servings:

Your mystery snail should eat one cube of snello a day. Always remember to take out the leftovers!

4. Beware Of Toxic Live Plants

Mystery snails eat live plants, contrary to popular belief. So you may have to consider the possibility of your snail eating your beautiful tank plants when it gets hungry. For some reasons best known to them, they cannot keep their radula off banana lilies and moneywort and may also eat toxic plants like cryptocoryne that can be irritating and detrimental to their health if they consume it long-term.

5. Air Stones May Be Problematic, Too

Just like kids with iPads, mystery snails love hanging out with air stones so much so that they forget to even eat. If you’re new to tank relics, air stones are small porous stones made of ceramic that facilitate oxygen circulation by bubbling the tank. In some cases, the force of the bubbles is so strong that they can throw the snail against the glass, cracking their delicate shells. Your fish might be having a good time without a problem, but I suggest you stay away from the air stones for the sake of your snail babies.

6. Ensure The Tank Water Quality Is Top Notch

The water is easily the most important aspect for your snails’ life span since they’d be living in it all their life. Therefore, it must be the healthiest water you can conjure. You must ensure that the water parameters are on check at all times by cycling the water and performing water changes when necessary.

You also need a testing kit to help detect the changes in the parameters of the water so that nothing goes unnoticed. If for instance, the ammonia levels are above 2, your mystery snails will die from the toxicity in a period of one week. Best not to play around and find out! The table below gives you control of what your parameters should be at all times.

7. Beware of Tank Cleaners With Sulfur

When it comes to maintaining the hygiene of your tank, ensure you use mystery snail-safe products that do not have sulfur in them. Sulfur is toxic to mysteries and will cause them harm along the way if you consistently use it. Thoroughly read the ingredients to make sure there’s no sulfur or anything “sulfuric” added to the ingredient list.

8. Double Check Your Snail’s Tankmates

If you plan to place other species of animals, be it mollusks or fish, ensure you’re getting tankmates that won’t bite your mysteries. Particularly, amphipods, territorial bettas, and guppies are known to nip at mysteries or at least bother them thus inducing stress, which can affect their health, especially if they get injured. I suggest you consider a separate tank for your mystery snails if you desire them to live as long as possible.

9. Place More Females Than Males In The Tank

Some male mystery snails are rather “active” maters that will almost mate the females to death if you let them. In some cases, the males may even mount younger snails that are not mature enough for breeding. It’s terrible! If you have more males than females, the possibility of your female snails living long may be as good as non-existent if you let the males do what they like. Either you separate them or have more females than males.

10. Darker Mystery Snails Live Longer Than Lighter Snails

The science behind this phenomenon has not been fully explored, but based on my experience and several others on the topic, the darker the snail lives longer. It may have to do with the special properties of their pigment-causing cells called iridocytes, which allows some snails to be more pigmented than others. Still, if you breed darker mysteries, you’d have a predominantly hardy generation of snails compared to the rest.

The “Cold Climate, Tougher Mystery Snail” Phenomenon Explained

Mystery snails go through micro adaptations to ensure they live comfortably in whatever situation they find themselves in. At least, as comfortable as possible. This is why when they’re faced with colder climates, they grow tougher shells to insulate themselves. These shells in turn reduce the chances of developing problems that are more or less fatal to the snails. To do this, they slow down their metabolism, which reflects in slower growth and smaller size compared to mystery snails that are grown in warmer climates.

On the opposite side, if you grow your snails in a warmer tank, say above 75°F, they will grow much bigger shells to help regulate their temperature. This then results in growing bigger muscles that fit into the large shells. However, by doing this you’re simply speeding the aging process, causing your snails to die earlier. Most breeders employ this technique to produce color variants in a shorter time as opposed to growing strong shells that take longer. Give or take, fast-grown mysteries die within a year, some even 6 months.

How Big Do Mystery Snails Get?

Mystery snails can get as large as a golf ball, which is roughly 2 inches. This depends on how healthy the snails are and the temperature of the water they live in. The warmer the water, the bigger and faster they grow. Just that they wouldn’t live for so long with such rapid growth. Also, make sure you haven’t been mistaking apple snails for mysteries. Apple snails get as big as 6 inches and sometimes get confused for large mystery snails. This in turn leads to the misled owners desperately trying to get their mystery snail to a size that is unattainable. Well, unless the mystery snail is truly one of a kind.

For better clarity, I have differentiated the species and their sizes below:

• Mystery Snail – Pomacea bridgesii: up to ~2 inches (~50mm).
• Giant apple snail -Pomacea maculata: up to ~6 inches (~155mm).
• Channeled apple snail – Pomacea canaliculata: up to ~4 inches (~100mm).