Tried putting Mud snails in my tank (also tried eating some myself)

Levinson

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Here where I live, South Korea, marine mud snails (not entirely sure what they are generally called in English) are sold as seafood for people at the fish market. You can even get them live online.
So I decided to do get some from the local fish market and try them out in my tank to see if they can make it.
I only needed a few and the seller was kind enough to sell less than a USD's worth. They were still far too many for my needs but I could always eat the leftover myself.
I did a little research before I got them. I couldn't find much but here's what I've found:
- Scientific name: Batillaria multiformis
- They live on the mudflats and the legends say they feed on the organics and diatoms on/in the mud
- It seems they are often found on the mud and simply picked up by the gatherers during the low tide. Not sure if they barrow in the mud or how often.
- They look pretty similar to Cerith snails. They both belong to the superfamily Cerithioidea, but belong to a different family (Batillariidae & Cerithiidae). No idea how distantly related that is.
- They have males and females. We, ordinary folks, cannot tell simply by looking.
- Couldn't find anyone who's tried these guys in the tank. There were other people who use/have used some other types of local marine snails that are round (also sold here as food) as algae clean-up crew with good results. One of the concerns for many was the possibility of the mud snails eating the corals since the snail species with the pointy shells are often meat eaters.

My tank has no corals so I'm not worried about them getting eaten. The only other snails I have are collonista snails (not so many at that).
My tank is almost bare bottom with very little sand not enough just to cover half the bottom.

Less than a USD worth of snails. Could've got far more for the buck if I bought more.
IMG_20210614_161305.jpg


4 chosen snails. I picked up the bigger guys. I only temp acclimated them.
IMG_20210614_161258.jpg


One of them had a live barnacle attached on its shell. Looks like it is trying to filter feed.


The next morning, all 4 of them seem to be still alive and moving. Don't know how well they are doing though. One of them climbed all the way up the glass, out of the water but got back inside a few minutes later.
IMG_20210615_092757.jpg


I have some diatoms, not really an issue for me but thought maybe the snails could feed on that, some detritus, and the leftover food.

It would be cool if they can make it in the tank. Will see.


....And this is what happened to the rest of the snails. I had to search youtube to learn the recipe. They taste alright but kinda hard to pull out from the shell. You can either use the toothpick to poke the flash and roll them out or break off the end tip of the shell with a tool and suck the flash out with your mouth. .....Yes, that's really how it's done.

IMG_20210615_092851.jpg

 
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Levinson

Levinson

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It's been 3 days and they are all still alive.
Not as active as I thought they'd be. They often hide in the shell when they notice me.
Seem to move more when I'm not watching.
It's hard to tell what or if they are eating.
I was hoping for them to stir up/move the very thin layer of sand but only one or two of them is doing that.
One of them likes to climb the glass, the rest not so much.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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am going to go ahead and need you to boil those before eating them/dont eat them vs raw, am currently googling the potential parasites they harbor I can’t remember if it’s called trichomoniasis or not, that’s likely a freshwater variant, I’d expect marine options to be worse and way more syllables
 
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Levinson

Levinson

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am going to go ahead and need you to boil those before eating them/dont eat them vs raw, am currently googling the potential parasites they harbor I can’t remember if it’s called trichomoniasis or not, that’s likely a freshwater variant, I’d expect marine options to be worse and way more syllables
Forgot to mention but yeah they were cooked. Boiled with soybean paste and ground garlic and all, as instructed on youtube. I wouldn't have them raw for sure. I think I screwed it up a little though since they were hard to pull out from the shell and it's supposed to be pretty easy to do.
 

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It's been 3 days and they are all still alive.
Not as active as I thought they'd be. They often hide in the shell when they notice me.
Seem to move more when I'm not watching.
It's hard to tell what or if they are eating.
I was hoping for them to stir up/move the very thin layer of sand but only one or two of them is doing that.
One of them likes to climb the glass, the rest not so much.
If you just ate like 20 of my friend I’d probably hide from you too lol
 
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Levinson

Levinson

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It's been 11days and all 4 snails (and a barnacle) are alive.
Still don't know if or what they are eating.
Over the past 11 days, I have found an escapee snail on the floor on 4 different occasions.
My dog brought the escapee snail to me twice.
I don't know how long they've been out of water but the snails looked ok after they were put back in to the tank. (Been into a dogs mouth twice too)
Not sure if they are the same ones that escaped the tank but I know the one with the barnacle didn't escape.
Sometimes they would climb up, out of the water then go back in, other times they'd climb over the glass and try to escape.

IMG_20210622_193254.jpg
 
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Levinson

Levinson

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Finally saw the snails eat and poop.
They were eating the organic/algae/film like stuff on the glass bottom. The area of the glass was clean after they were done. Judging by the path marks on the sand, it looks like they were also eating stuff on the sand.
They can't or won't climb the rocks so they are mostly at the bottom. They can climb the glass but won't do it very often.
They are not all that exciting and I don't think they do much in terms of cleaning but so far, it looks like they can get by in the tank. The major downside in keeping them is that they tend to escape time to time.
 
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