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Post by khan on Mar 9, 2017 12:36:32 GMT
Good morning everyone! I'm Italian so sorry for my English! I'm a new member:) and a kinda new owner of snails^^ Always loved them, but never got one.. but.. 3 months ago I "saved" 2 snails from a garden center.. they were keeping them horribly (no humidity, cold ~17°, there was an hot spot bulb -.-" , no food or calcium ), and expensive (30€ one)- they are achatinidae. Now they have their boxes with heat map, coconut fiber, sepia bones and always food. I tried to documentate myself on their species but I'm not so sure, could someone helping me? how do I add images here?:/ thanks in advance and HELLO again to everyone.
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Post by etana on Mar 9, 2017 13:02:35 GMT
Hi Khan, welcome to the forum! It's likely that you have some Achatina fulica, they're the most common and they can temporarily tolerate much worse conditions that other giant African snails. Still it'll be nice to see them! You can add pictures with the Attachments option in the bigger Reply window, or store them elsewhere and link to them with the button in the toolbar with a photo on it.
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Post by khan on Mar 9, 2017 18:18:16 GMT
Hello! I was on phone and there wasn't the attachment button. this is Beatrice ( 22 grams for 5,0 cm max lenght ) , and this is Valentina ( 20grams for max lenght 4,8 cm ) I kept them in 2 different boxes for a month in a sort of quarantine since they were separeted when I took them, after a warm bath Valentina (who in incapable of completely stay in her shell ) decided to "RUN" on the sink, insted Beatrice was shy and stayed inside. after feeling the warm coconut fiber she came out, and I thought she was an archacatina because she have a pronciated V shape on the foot. after 3 months they love to eat (like me) and scraching the sepia bones at 3 am in the morning x.x till now, they are alive do you have any suggestion on how to take care of them, or after 3 months from the saving I can consider them safe??? And another things, this one : is an achatina immaculata var panthera, right?? she is old/new.. a friend of mine gone abroad in the usa and couldn't bring her, he said thats her species, is it true??
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Post by khan on Mar 10, 2017 11:35:36 GMT
no one?
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Post by etana on Mar 10, 2017 11:59:25 GMT
Hey I will respond today when I'm on my laptop and can zoom in.
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Post by etana on Mar 10, 2017 13:13:30 GMT
All right, Beatrice is definitely fulica. Her colouring is of the rodatzi kind (light-colour shell, brown foot), though I don't know if she's "pure" rodatzi. Valentina looks like a Achatina fulica jadatzi to me. Her shell doesn't look like the Archachatina marginata shell at all as it's so pointy. But if you want, you can post a picture of her tail. The last pic, I'm a bit suspicious because the columella doesn't seem to show the typical A. immaculata panthera colour. The tail and face would be good to see of this snail, too. If they love to eat, are active and use their cuttlebones too, it sounds good to me. For one last thing, make sure to see that they don't have any snow white, fat mites running in and out of them (pretty much any other tiny bugs are ok, we're looking for really snow white, zig-zagging mites). I see none in the photos but you need to be 100% sure. If there aren't any, they can meet each other. Be there for when they first meet so you can see if they're friendly. Usually it goes well, but sometimes snails who have been alone for a very long time kind of freak out from the sight of other snails and don't know what to do. If at least one of them has seen a living, breathing snail after early babyhood, it should be ok. CORRECTION: Obviously it's not jadatzi but WHITE JADE. My bad!
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Post by jolovessnailies on Mar 10, 2017 15:49:32 GMT
A warm welcome to our happy family love. I have Italian blood along with Spanish and Irish. Your English is very good, I wish I could speak italian that well.
Hugs Jo xx
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Post by khan on Mar 10, 2017 21:05:08 GMT
Hello and Good evening everybody!! Thanks Jo you're too kind ( obviously that's the italian blood ), but I know my grammar is scholastic and basic. Thanks Etana, I checked really carefully nothing white that move fast (afid? ) and I'm going to post 2 photos of them 3 all togheter enjoyng a warm bath for the first time ever. but first, I made 179 photos trying to capture face and booty tail, who ever said that snails are slow.. never saw mine XD So, here we are ... first collage it's Valentina : Look at her shell look how bad she was treated, I'm sure that she fell or the others ate her ). Second collage, this is Beatrice : looking at her apex, you could see that she is basically flat, do you thing she's broken? or is she born like that? And, if she's not pure, how could I understand who were the parents? or at least one of them, since one as etana said is probably a rodatzy. If I keep watching her I only saw that her foot is thinnier in confront of Valentina, and she has shorter eyes :/ . Is she missing something? calcium o else? third and last, this is Attila, I named her like this because : " the grass did not grow where Attila had passed " and she's like that.. no food left behind. Did I forgot something? I'm going to post another replay with the collective photos of my "small" friends.
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Post by khan on Mar 10, 2017 21:18:41 GMT
I don't know why I can't upload the picture turned in the right way. There they are!!!! No one afraid, no one tried to eat the others ^^ I'm happy. So, at the end.. what are they??? a fantasy rodatzy? and a fulica jadazy (slways thought they were light and pale on shell), and attila is?? Thanks in advance^^
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Post by etana on Mar 11, 2017 12:11:15 GMT
Hi Khan! First of all sorry, I must have been in a rush last time! You're completely right, Valentina's not jadatzi, she is Achatina fulica white jade! Thanks for the face & tail pictures. Yeah poor Valentina has some old damage there and some wear and tear, but I'm sure she'll be fine in your care, with friendly tank mates, a variety of foods and cuttlebones. I see she is perfectly albino in the foot too, with the faint pink eye spots. Lovely. Beatrice's shell tip has broken off due to falling, but the good news is that with snails of that size, the very last whorl is not significant. They seal it up and their inner organs are no longer there, so the problem is only cosmetic. She won't repair it to be pointy, she'll at most strengthen the area from inside. Beatrice might very well be a "real" rodatzi but I can't promise it. There has been a lot of mixing up of genes in captive bred snails so we just usually call those colours rodatzi unless we're biologists doing research. Attila looks like a lovely A. fulica white jade as well. Could be albino immaculata, but I don't see what I think I should see in her columella. Immacs feel very different to human skin though, they have VERY strong muscles (like so strong you end up being like "how do I get this snail off me/the tank wall without hurting her?"), they move faster, and their rasp is a lot sharper than the fulica rasp. At this point I'm 90% sure Attila is fulica but I'd be 100% sure if I could feel her foot muscles. I'm glad to hear their first meeting went so well! Now you'll have some nice snaily social situations, drama and romance to watch! Remember to start doing egg checks though.
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Post by etana on Mar 11, 2017 12:16:05 GMT
Oh and about the short eyes: Some snails just don't like to use their eye stalks long. I have one snail who has VERY long eye stalks but most of the time he has at most 2cm of them out! It's funny and I don't think there's anything to worry about, just their personal/snailular preferences.
I don't think your snails look underweight. Have you been offering them anything else than vegetables and cuttlefish bones?
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Post by khan on Mar 11, 2017 13:26:33 GMT
Hi!!! no worries at all:) but only thanks to you kindness to answering me.
Can I ask you what you see in their faces? I'm interested o.o that's awesome, they kinda look the same to me. sorry but, searched even in Google, what's a " faint pink eye spot"? the end of the shell?
Tor be fair Attila is strong af!! but I thought it was like that because she's bigger,~3cm more than Valentina and Beatrice. I can tell you that esterday, taking the collective photos on hand, take off Beatrice is easy, Valentina I'm always afraid of hurt her because she's reeeeeeallllllly thin and her shell broke just looking at it.. Attila it's like a suction pump when fully outside.
Valentina and Attila actually tried my skin, I felt them but as before thought they were different because of size.
For the social interactions, only when taking a warm bath with me there,I'm keeping them separated, I don't want to ruin the specie:(
diet is : vegetables (everything I got home,they love American sweet potato), fruit (banana and strawberries, it's litteraly impossible to make them eat apples), since I have other animal I put inside dead locusts and crickets, after the bath when full active I give each other 1 tablet of fish food, and once a week 5 dried shrimps. after reading on the Internet once I tried creamed corn but after 2 days was nearly all still there. There's something wrong?
So, we can say for sure that Valentina is an Achatina fulica white jade albina. Beatrice is an achatina fulica rodatzy and Attila could be a white jade or an immaculata albina. Thanks^^
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Post by etana on Mar 11, 2017 14:20:41 GMT
You're very welcome! Oh, snail faces are very different! The shape of the tentacles, the length of the face, the texture of the skin, facial expressions, everything varies a bit. The pink eye spots mean their "pupils", it's actually the end of their optic nerve. With completely albino snails, even that lacks pigment so it appears as pink. I'll show you some old pictures. I already have them uploaded, that's why they'll show up big in my post. Here's my leucistic snail Iisakki, who is Archachatina marginata, as a baby. He's otherwisely white but the eye spots are black: (Yes that's a scar on his back, but it healed completely.) You might see how the eyes are quite different to your snails! Also the tails, I will show you an old pic of a snail with the "V" tail: The huge guy is my biggest tiger snail (Achatina achatina), called Gaius, pulling his eyes in as he enjoys some egg. He has a baby Achatina achatina on his shell, and there's Iisakki a bit more grown up in the background (his shell grew a bit bad). Look at the tail of Gaius, the "V" has very distinct ridges in the skin. It's like that with all snails who have it. That diet sounds great! Feeding them dead insects is a good idea, but usually it's not easy for snail keepers to do it. As you probably know (but this is for other readers as well), snails gladly take a bite of dead animals, dead snails, dead insects etc. that they find in the wild. Most snail keepers have to replace it with eggs, meat or fish food once or twice a week. As long as your fish food and shrimp has no added salt, sugar or copper, it should be good (naturally occurring natrium is ok) - and keep offering the insects too, since you can! LOL Attila's "suction pump" sounds like Immaculata for sure, they're crazy strong! Though you are right that it could be her size too. Wait till the two other ones catch up and then see if they still are very different strengths! I have some Immacs who are not albino and their foot colouring is very different to anything that my many different fulica have, but obviously I can't use that with your snail.
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Post by jolovessnailies on Mar 11, 2017 15:28:32 GMT
You are welcome Khan love and yes, I like to think it is the Italian lol! Great snaily photos, really cute.
Hugs Jo xx
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Post by khan on Mar 11, 2017 19:46:06 GMT
*_* amazing Gaius *-* daaaamnnnnn enormous!!!! just checked the tablets :/ they have sugar.. i have Tetra Tablets TabiMin with: Milk & dairy products, fish & fish by-products, vegetable protein extracts, cereals, yeasts, algae, molluscs, crustaceans, oils and fats, sugar, minerals. I give 1 for week. should I stop this kind? I'm studying all you said checking mine and yours photo :} and I have some questions: - var. stands for? - sometimes I find achatina achatina achatina eccecc is it different from achatina achatina? which one is bigger? and.. which one is the biggest ever? I was thinking for the future to search for an achatina achatina ghana albina.. is it "enormously big? -are albinos smaller than normal colour?
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