Best Freshwater Snails For Aquarium

Aside from pet fish and live plants, snails are a good addition to an aquarium for more lively scenarios. They’re small, commonly easy to keep and look beautiful.

Here are the 5 best freshwater snails for aquariums that not only meet my above saying but also are friendly to fish and plants.

Faunus Ater (Black Devil Snails)

This is considered a pretty big type of snail, around 2 to 3 inches long (equivalent to 5 to 7.6 centimeters). Their identification characteristics are a pointed conical shell that is either glossy black or extremely dark brown.

Black Devil Snails look interesting, at least in my opinion, as their outlook is like obsidian.

While other aquarium items, like algae and plants, are green, your pet fish looks colorful (might be orange, red, purple, or blue), these stand out for its darkish shell.

Two things about them that any aquarist should keep in mind:

A few cases note that they eat live plants but don’t fret, that rarely happens if your tank has lots of algae to munch on.

They are brackish water snails so, in freshwater, their eggs won’t hatch.

Care information:

Tylomelania Sp. (Rabbit Snails)

Rabbit snails come in a wide range of sizes and colors due to their diverse species but in general, their identification characteristics are 1 to 4 inches long and a twisted conical shell.

Aside from their reasonably small size and lovely looking, many aquarists love adding them to their fish tank for some practical benefits. The biggest is they leave live plants alone (except Java fern, they will devour it like candy).

Their favorite foods are fish waste around the tank, uneaten fish food, and algae.

Besides, they love digging around in the substrate, which also helps aerate the soil for planted aquariums.

About breeding, it is pretty slow, around 4 to 6 weeks that rabbit snails lay an egg. But that only happens if you have a female and a male in your tank, so if you don’t like to see baby snails in there, keep only one rabbit snail.

Care Information

Cipangopaludina Japonica (Japanese Trapdoor Snails)

These snails were commonly kept in ponds but these days, they become more and more popular for fish tank use because they don’t eat live plants (as long as they’re well-fed).

Their food sources are detritus in the aquarium, such as algae, and take note that Japanese Trapdoor Snails have a voracious appetite. They’re also a large snail, around 2” long, therefore, I highly recommend keeping only one (male or female) in your tank.

Aside from cleaning an aquarium, these snails look beautiful.

They come in a variety of species, meaning there are many color options, like dark brown, white, green, or golden.

Their identification characteristics are a twisted conical shell that distinctly gets bigger with each whorl.

Care information

Pomacea Bridgesii (Mystery Snails)

This is another of my favorite snails for aquariums as they look cute when cruising around the tank.

Talking about the outlook, they are actually a kind of apple snail, with a signature rounded shell that can be purple, black, brown, green, blue, red, golden, or white.

The best thing about this snail is you can easily control their numbers because eggs are commonly laid in the form of large clusters above the waterline (they are in bright pink, for your information). Therefore, it’s easy to remove their eggs and dispose of them.

You can keep more than one mystery snails in your tank, from that point.

About their diet, these guys don’t eat algae much, in turn, they’re good at cleaning up uneaten fish food.

Care information

Clea Helena (Assassin Snail)

A perfect choice for those aquariums that are invalided by plenty of pest snails. Yes, Assassin Snails are carnivorous and its favorite menu is no other than other snails.

But if you’re keeping pet snails, kindly consider carefully before choosing these guys.

If used properly, they’re a perfect choice to control naturally the numbers of other snails.

Regardless, they’re well-loved by their beautiful, unique shell with dark brown and yellow stripes throughout it. The common length of this snail is around 1 or 2 inches. You can easily spot them through a glance from a distance.

During the day, they won’t be active much but at night, you’ll see them cruising here to eat.

Care information

Conclusion

Above are the 5 best freshwater snails for aquariums to consider. Take note that they are just the shiniest contender; there’re still a lot of other low-maintenance pet snails, like Trumpet Snails, Ramshorn Snails, Gold Inca Snails, Ivory Snails, and Apple Snails.