Helena snail: benefits, harms and recommendations for maintenance

The Helena snail is an unusual species of freshwater predatory molluscs. Aquarists choose these creatures for their ability to fight the out-of-control breeding weed snails. The Helens themselves are also very interesting creatures, whose behavior is interesting to observe.

In its natural environment, this predator lives on the islands of Indochina and Indonesia. Helena rightfully belongs to the only freshwater trumpeters - the family of marine molluscs. Fast rivers and stagnant bodies of water become their habitat.

Its feature is that the breathing tube is pulled forward during movement. The carapace is ribbed and has the shape of a cone. It is painted in a rich yellow hue, along which spiral black stripes run.

Inexperienced aquarists, after reading unfounded reviews from incompetent snail lovers, are afraid to start this species. Really, it is believed that this snail is capable of killing and eating aquarium fish... This is exactly what the breeders decided when they noticed how Helena eats a fish carcass. In fact, this creature cannot attack, strangle or poison fish, even a young fry is beyond its power, but the snail will not refuse to feast on the corpse of a dead fish. That is, aquarists who notice that Helena is cracking down on the body of a fish should know that this fish was already dead.

When you add a snail to an aquarium with fish, you don't have to worry that it will harm them. But the benefits of this creation can be significant.If Helena is too small, slow and weak to hunt for fish, then she will eat her smaller relatives, for example, nat or coils, without problems. These weedy snails reproduce very quickly in the aquarium. Some people think that the coils can be used as living filters, supposedly they will clean the walls and decorations from green plaque.

Nevertheless, it should be stipulated that Helena will not give up useful snails, for example, melania, which are really capable of maintaining the cleanliness of the soil. These molluscs destroy the remnants of decomposed algae, which Helena is not capable of. These useful creatures become the prey of a predatory snail, so the owner of the aquarium runs the risk of being left without living cleaners. In this regard, it is important to control the number of predators and leave them in the reservoir in an amount that does not exceed the number of other snails.

In order for Helens to feel comfortable and ready for high-quality breeding, it is important to observe the conditions of detention. So, you should be responsible for the volume of the aquarium where snails will be kept... A volume of 3-5 liters is enough for one individual, but if the artificial reservoir is larger, then the mollusks will feel better. Before planting a new Helena with the rest of the inhabitants, she must go through a quarantine period. To do this, leave it for several weeks in a separate container until it reaches a size of 1 cm, and only then plant it in a common aquarium.

Keep in mind that at a temperature of 20 degrees, snails will no longer be able to give birth, and at even lower rates, the mollusks will refuse to eat. Use fine gravel or sand as substrate. These snails like to burrow into the ground up to half of their shells, so prefer the finest fraction. The color can be any - a creature of such a bright unusual color looks beautiful both on a dark or light background, and on the bottom of a saturated shade.

So, an additive can be frozen shrimp, bloodworms, tableted feed for catfish... You can feed Helen with boiled squid meat, mussels or beef offal (heart, liver). The snail eats a lot per day, but does not eat every day, and after a meal it prefers to go into short-term hibernation. With proper maintenance, the lifespan of Helena in aquarium conditions will be 2-5 years.

As already mentioned, the number of Helen individuals must be controlled. If you do not attach importance to their number, then soon there will be no other smaller snails in the aquarium. Larger snails may not be afraid of their voracious neighbor, such as adult neretins, ampullaries, marises, or large tylomelanias. Helena reaches the contents of the shell by pushing the proboscis with the mouth opening inside and sucking in the insides, but she cannot cope with larger individuals.

This snail is safe for fish and shrimps, since they are too nimble creatures that Helena cannot keep up with, and besides, they are not of food interest for her. True, one can observe a situation when a fish has become a victim of a predator, however, this is always a sick fish, which is not even able to move from an illness.

The fry, which have already learned to swim on their own, do not risk anything, but it is not worth breeding fish in a common aquarium - Helena will enjoy caviar with pleasure. If active or aggressive fish are kept together with Helens, for example, cichlids, labyrinths, bots and barbs, then the snails themselves will not reproduce. In this case, when breeding mollusks, you can plant them.

These mollusks lend themselves well to breeding in aquarium conditions, although a small number of snails are usually hatched at a time. Unlike most of their relatives, helena are not hermaphrodites, and therefore, for reproduction, a large number of individuals must be kept in order to increase the likelihood of males and females. It is impossible to determine the gender of Helen, but these creatures sometimes gather in pairs. - and then we can assume that it is a female and a male. So, the male and female individuals keep together all the time, even when they eat. If you plan to breed in a separate container, then this pair can be taken as producers.

Sometimes two individuals are joined by their neighbors, and the aquarist can observe a real "sandwich" of stuck together snails. The female lays her egg on a hard surface, usually stones or driftwood. The egg resembles a transparent capsule that contains a miniature yellow ball. It also forms rather slowly, within 20-30 days, depending on the temperature.

As soon as a cub hatches from the shell, it will immediately burrow into the ground, and for several months the owner will not see it. Young snails hatch from the sand when they reach a size of 3-4 mm, but an extremely small amount of helen will survive until adulthood due to the high competition for food during the period of active growth. Young people swim in the upper layer of water and feed on leftover fish food.

For the content of the Helena snail, see below.