Acclimatising Freshwater Nerite Snail to Saltwater

Hey there

First before anyone says anything I know you are problably wondering why will someone want to do this, well, let's say I like my two nerites. I have them since the beginning and I just dont want to get rid of them nor separate them as they seem quite fond of each other.

I can't put them in my big freshwater tank because I have clown loaches in it. They were on a nano tank I have for a few months on their own but I wasnt really looking after this tank and it was talking too much space in my already aquarium crowded house. It all initially started with my wanted to breed Nerite snails, I know they need brackish water to do so otherwise the eggs wont hatch.



So I started increasing my salinity, this was done on weekly basis, around 0.01-2 per week, once it reached 1.010 I stopped. I was constantly watching their behavior. If I increased the salinity to quickly they would tend to leave the aquarium (or if the water was getting to dirty like in the picture ). So it took me over 4 months to get to 1.026~8. I left them there for over 1 month, constantly checking their behavior, watched for symptoms of sickness or discomfort etc.

They little lads seemed to be doing ok, not a peep out of them so then I decided to move them into my hospital tank which is currently empty. I will probably end up moving them to my main tank but for the moment I want to see how they do on a real marine tank. The sump might be a good option but at the moment I have a huge mithrax crab there and I am not sure if they will end up being his dinner!



I slowly introduced them to the new water and for the first few hours watched them closely. At the minor sign of discomfort I would have moved them out back into the nano. Everything went well.



So they have been there for over a week and so far so good. The main problem seems to be the temperature, they like Colder water and my hospital tank temperature was a bit high (28 degrees), once I lowered the temperature they stopped moving around the edge of the water level and moved deeper inside the aquarium.





So now my only concern is their health, make sure they stay healthy, also a bit concerned about their shells but so far so good.

Remember, this is in no way meant as a guide on "how to convert freshwater nerites to saltwater"! I am just sharing my experience. In my case, it worked, or at least so far, I will keep you all posted just in case. But if you try this with other nerites it might not work at all!

Was it worth it for me, well, yes as I didnt want to return them to my LFS nor sell them, obviously if you dont have freshwater nerite snails and you have a marine tank it is pointless to buy freshwater nerites and try to covert them to saltwater, just buy saltwater nerites!

The time/length are in no way to be taken as a rule, it took me over 4 months to successfully convert them to saltware but I am sure you could attempt to do this quicker as long as you raise the salinity very slowly!

Remember, Nerites are originally saltware snails, and they tend to go to the sea when they grow older (as well as to breed)

Interesting piece. And nice to see such care for snails; I think they very often get overlooked as expendable. One of my hopes in the near future is to create a snail only tank

Thanks LJ

Yeah, I enjoy snails, I find them fascinating on their own way, they can have quite a personality sometimes.

If this doesnt work I might need to move them back to FW.

I am planning of getting rid of some of my FW fish (clowns, siamese algae eaters etc), only the bigger ones and keep the smaller fish.

I just hate splitting them and it is hard to find them a good home, havent made up my mind yet, I have been thinking about it for months! I want to downgrade my tank and get another Beta, my fav fw fish hence why I dont want any big fish in the tank.

Small is good. They can be as fascinating, if not more so, than many larger fish

very interesting topic and good to see the care and attention given to the snails who are often overlooked and seen as expendable despite the fact they keep the place clean and habitable for the other more flashy inhabitants aka fish

top marks