Bladder snails

A small unremarkable snail, fond of algae and therefore a good cleaner. Very active during the day, it is interesting to observe and reproduces readily.

Bladder snails are, along with pond snails, the most common snails in our streams and ponds.
Unlike pond snails, bladder snails do not attack living plants, which makes them preferable in aquariums.
It is best to avoid collecting these snails from the wild for a simple reason: they are reservoirs of certain parasitic cycles involving fish and could thus contaminate your tank inhabitants. It takes several generations of breeding without fish to break these parasitic cycles.
Apart from this point, the bladder snail is a charming little snail active during the day, small in size, and very prolific if conditions allow.
Its only serious predator is the glossiphonia, a harmless small leech that we offer to control its population when it becomes invasive.
Bladder snails do important cleaning work, especially consuming algae on aquarium glass, but also incidentally removing dead fish or various other creatures. When algae are present, they multiply, and they decline when the environment becomes poorer in algae. They are therefore an excellent indicator.
There is no need to feed them, as the biological cycle as it is suffices.
They are hermaphrodites, meaning they carry both sexes, but they need to be in pairs to reproduce.
Unlike malaysian Trumpet Snails, bladder snails also breathe atmospheric air at the surface. They regularly come up to breathe.
They are comfortable both outdoors and indoors, even in winter during severe frost.

Indicative weight: 30g