Snails. Apple snails. Pomacea diffusa. At the end of May, I’d never heard of these things. But very quickly I’ve become totally entranced by them. They’re cute, fun, fascinating little critters. They have personalities, they play, they do funny stuff, and of course, they eat and poop.

I should take a few steps back of course, the aquarium came first, then the snails. I got into aquariums in a pretty normal way, much like I assume everyone else initially gets involved in the hobby: I took ill with a particularily virulent form of the flu and spent several days with a very high fever, and when the fever broke I found that I’d bought an aquarium and some fish. Fairly common, I’m sure.

This is my first apple snail, I named him Speed Racer because I had no idea snails could move as fast as he does. He was about an inch across when I got him, but only a month later he’s about 1 1/2 inches, and he’s added about a half turn to his shell.

Realizing I was getting very interested in aquarium stuff very quickly, I decided the 5.5 gallon starter tank wasn’t going to work out. My sister had a 23 gallon tank she wasn’t using so she let me have it. Now Speed Racer has two snaily friends, and the two original zebra fish (Shifty and Popeye) have five more friends to play with.

There’s lots more pics of my snailies at this thread on Applesnail.net.

For all the information you could ever want on the subject of apple snails, there is a great website called AppleSnail.net – it is a wealth of information, and best of all, there is a discussion forum with a lot of friendly helpful people, eager to talk snails!

Another super resource is the First Tank Guide – while not specific to snails, this site has loads of good advice and information for the new aquarium owner. Pay special attention to the information about tank size, population, and cycling.

If you want to check in on my snailies in real-time, you can visit my Snail-Cam! It is running during the daytime here (North America, Eastern Time).