# Killies Import > Planted Tanks >  if you have brown algae, read this

## hwchoy

recently I got some new kind of horned snails from TB Ben. look what they did to the brown algae!  :Surprised:

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## amber2461

Wow, wow, wow !!! Where can I get some now?

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## stormhawk

Probably just another _Clithon_ species. Maybe the guys on molluscan.com might know the actual species.  :Wink: 

Its a nice little fella. Maybe I'll just go get some.  :Cool:

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## Green Baron

> Probably just another _Clithon_ species. Maybe the guys on molluscan.com might know the actual species. 
> 
> Its a nice little fella. Maybe I'll just go get some.


This species of snail is my favorite. It does not eat plant, does not litter your aquarium with eggs like zebra snail and is good at cleaning up algae on flat surface. I keep a few in all my tanks. 
There is this one particular snail in my tank which loves BBA. It eats up all the BBA on my Nana overnight. However, I had to manually transfer it to the BBA infected leaves everytime.

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## stormhawk

Gan, what's this BBA eating snail? Do you have an image of it? I need one to combat some remaining bits of BBA in my tank.

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## Piscesgirl

I want to know about this BBA eating snail too -- although I wouldn't be able to put it in my BBA infested tank anyway (clown loaches). I miss snails in that tank  :Sad:

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## ruyle

Guys, is this another one that has been acclimated to freshwater? That 
needs at least full brackish to breed them? You guys sure are lucky with
all these Neritidae-type snails!  :Cool:  

Jian Yang, maybe last year some time you posted a pic of a little snail with
horns. I've been "thumbing thru the pages" but haven't found it yet. 

Do you remember this one?

Bill

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## stormhawk

Bill, I don't recall posting an image of the horned snail but here's a thread in which a pic is posted by GanCW.

http://www.killies.com/forum/viewtop...highlight=horn

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## Piscesgirl

Bill and I both really need some of those horned snails!  :Very Happy:

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## ruyle

Thanks, Jian Yang, that's the one! 

Deborah, isn't that the cutest snail you've ever seen?  :Cool:  

We should ask Gan how they do in a freshwater tank....

Bill

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## hwchoy

I have the non-banded horned snails for some time, they don't seem to lay any eggs. the zebra snails (see GanCW thread) does lay a lot of eggs but they do not hatch. after a while the eggs get eaten by something else but I have not found out who.  :Confused:

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## ruyle

Heng Wah,
I'm afraid they need full brackish, like a salt marsh, to breed...too bad.
Still be worth having a brackish tank to breed them, then a FW tank to
acclimate them...hummmm.

Bill

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## Piscesgirl

> Deborah, isn't that the cutest snail you've ever seen



Yes!  ::smt060:  





> Still be worth having a brackish tank to breed them, then a FW tank to 
> acclimate them...hummmm.


I'd be willing to take any snails resulting from your experiment, Bill  ::smt003:

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## stormhawk

Hmm.. to the best of my knowledge, the majority of snails offered via AB for the US customers are almost always apple snails, ramshorns and MTS. I don't think I've seen the horned snails being offered on AB but there's a seller that has the Zebra Snail (Neritina natalensis) and the Olive Nerite snail.

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/aucti...n.cgi?fwsnails

See Joesaquatic. I think he's from Vermont.

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## ruyle

Yes, *yawn* the olive nerites are available through several people. The
Tiger variety is interesting, though, but still not as cute as the horned one
Gan has pictured, which are not available in the US, at all.  :Sad:  

If you guys were to locate these snails, I'd have to decide if paying FedEx
express (only choice, really) is worth possible DOA  :Rolling Eyes:  And now that it
is getting colder, would probably be best to wait till spring.

I guess I'll have to comfort myself with Gan's picture of the snail!  :Laughing:  
At least for now....

Bill

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## Green Baron

The Zebra snail will eat brown algae for a short period after which they prefer to hang around drift wood and lay eggs all over the place. I have a 2 feet tank which is covered with Zebra snail eggs  :Evil:  I don't recommend them for planted tank. 

Not all horn snails eat BBA. I train mine to eat BBA by repeatedly placing them on my BBA infested Anubias leaf and after a while one or two will develop a taste BBA. It is a lot of work but when they do their work, it is amazing.

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## ruyle

> Not all horn snails eat BBA. I train mine to eat BBA by repeatedly placing them on my BBA infested Anubias leaf and after a while one or two will develop a taste BBA. It is a lot of work but when they do their work, it is amazing.


Hi CW, plus they are the cutest snail I've ever seen. I also like the fact 
that they are small (who wants a tennis ball-sized apple snail in
their tank? :Shocked:  Are these available most the time at the SG lfs's? I 
would like to get 6-8 of these next spring. Also, have you tried
breeding these in a brackish tank? Curious if you were successful.  :Smile:  


Bill

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## stormhawk

Bill, I'll be heading out to some of the stores later and I'll let you know if I spot any. I want to get some for myself too.  :Laughing:

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## whuntley

Hey guys,

A little word of caution. Please be very catious about spreading snails to places where they don't belong.

We are in a losing battle with New Zealand snails, here in the Eastern Sierras.

Don't create another scene like we are facing, if a little restraint and judgement can do the job.

Sermon Mode <OFF>

Wright

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## ruyle

> Bill, I'll be heading out to some of the stores later and I'll let you know if I spot any. I want to get some for myself too.


Jian Yang, I wish you *Good Will Hunting* for them!  :Laughing:  

Wright, what snail is this from New Zealand?

Bill

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## stormhawk

Bill, found several of 'em critters but they're pretty small. Didn't get any. However I did a trade with an acquaintance for some of these fellas instead in exchange for my excess hornwort (quite a hefty amount):



Cute aren't they?  :Very Happy: 

They're now in my 3footer community planted. Observed them feeding on the food chips that I fed to my other fishes. Image of the tank below. I just did a hasty revamp awhile ago (incomplete) and the red ramshorns really add colour to the scenery.  :Cool: 



Pardon the appearance of some equipment. My first prototype CO2 reactor based on Tom Barr's design is on the left. Works quite well so far.  :Wink:

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## whuntley

> Wright, what snail is this from New Zealand?
> 
> Bill


The New Zealand Mud Snail. It looks about like a miniature MTS, but has awesome reproductive ability. See, as a starting place:

http://www.esg.montana.edu/aim/mollusca/nzms/

Wright

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## Robert

Hi Jianyang,
your red snails are beautiful. But the species name looks a bit strange to me. I know these snails under the name Planorbis corneus. What you have should be the red color morph. It lacks some pigments and so the shell is lighter colored than the wild brwon ones. The body of the snail is red colored because it has hemoglobin to transport oxigen. BTW, there is also a color morph / strain which has a colorless shell as well as a blue one. 

Regarding these horn snails, there was a larger import to Europe in the last weeks. They appeared in our LFS in smaller quantities also a few months ago when I bought two of them. The grow quite fast in freshwater. The shell of my yellow-olive one grew about 1cm in a half year. That's pretty fast in my opinion. But it developed no new spikes. My yellow-live one often tries to mate with my olive one which is not possible, they seem to be two different Clithon species. 

regards

Robert

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## PeterGwee

Jianyang, the reactor placement is wrong! The outlet should be pointing downwards. You are not going to keep the CO2 in to dissolve with your placement. Getting critters to help out on algae issues are fine but solving the root cause is the long term solution.

Use the CO2 and the reactor properly...now I know why you have BBA..  :Laughing:  

Regards
Peter Gwee  :Wink:

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## ruyle

Jian Yang,
Those are some pretty reds! About the horn snails, how much in US adjusted dollars were they asking for them? Just curious..the next time you go perhaps someone can paypal you funds to help  :Wink:  

Glad to see one of the Barr reactors running! I see Peter has corrected
its placement  :Laughing:  It doesn't use a viewtainer, though. His (Barr's) new deal involves a good diffuser set down low in the back of a tank and mounting the return spraybar vertically in the back so that the current distributes the bubbles better amongst the plants. This approach is quite similar to what Amano has been doing all along  :Rolling Eyes:  The issue is dissolved CO2 vs pure CO2 collecting on the plants. Folks have found 
this to not use as much CO2, yet give excellent growth. This method is 
for compressed gas injection, to where it can be shut off easily at night.

Wright: that is disturbing news about the mud snail....

Bill

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## Green Baron

Bill,
They cost S$1 = US$0.60 each.

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## elmike

> I want to know about this BBA eating snail too -- although I wouldn't be able to put it in my BBA infested tank anyway (clown loaches). I miss snails in that tank


Clown loaches are no fools. If no one offered to de-shell the snail – whatever species, no matter how small – they won’t eat of it. That’s my experience with my 2 clown loaches, which have been with me for 4 years. 

I once had a bad snail colonization, and my clown loaches would swim to the snail, scrutinise it quizzically with wide-eyed “what the heck are these?” expression, and swim away. 

I come, I see, I swam away, so they say.  :Cool: 
Go ahead, get that snail!  :Laughing:

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## ruyle

> Bill,
> They cost S$1 = US$0.60 each.


Gosh, that's cheap! Who do I paypal, plus express shipping?  :Cool:  
I'd want maybe 12-16 of them. Didn't check, but is it asexual reproduction?

Jian Yang, I'll buy some for you, too, for your trouble!  :Laughing:  

Deborah wants some, that's why 12-16  :Wink: 

Wait a minute, I hope to have an express shipment from Ronnie where
these could be added.....hummmm. If I don't win the auction, somebody
is gonna pay dear for one pair of fish  :Twisted Evil:  

Bill

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## ruyle

When I get the Novalek order, we can talk about the snails again: I'll post
a pic here of burning a breather bag with a Bic lighter "It's a bag a day, fellas, 'til I get them snails!"  :Evil: 

Honestly, would I do that? Moi? Naw, I'm just kidding! Muhahahahahah!  :Laughing: 

Bill

Really, just kiddin'  :Wink:

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## Piscesgirl

Actually my clown loaches are terribly good snail eaters. Malaysian Trumpets, Ramshorns, pond snails -- they eat em all.  :Sad:  There's a couple snails that survive because they are in the filter but otherwise if I put a snail in that tank, they'll hunt it down.  :Crying:

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## RonWill

> If I don't win the auction, somebody is gonna pay dear for one pair of fish


 Pardon the sporadic participation, Bill. It was awkward to have you popping into the auction but if you can help to partially offset the shipping cost, I'll have the FIL, red rams and others, stuffed into the box.

I'm not concerned if the auction gets me a good price for the effort but I'm helluva worried whether the contents will slip past watchful eyes.

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## ruyle

Ronnie,
I expect to pay auction price plus shipping, period. I'm not going to 
handicap you guys when I bid on your fish. If I send over something as
a gift that's that , but an auction is a business transaction. The red snails
are nice, would like some, and if someone can get me some of the little
horn snails, just add the price to the shipment, thanks!

My maxbid was pretty healthy, so I hope to win this auction!  :Wink:  

And I will be keeping my fingers crossed when the box is sent!  :Smile:  

Bill

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## stormhawk

> Jianyang, the reactor placement is wrong! The outlet should be pointing downwards. You are not going to keep the CO2 in to dissolve with your placement. Getting critters to help out on algae issues are fine but solving the root cause is the long term solution.
> 
> Use the CO2 and the reactor properly...now I know why you have BBA..  
> 
> Regards
> Peter Gwee


Peter, I actually thought about that bit. I was doing it up the way Tom did it the first time round.  :Laughing:  

So maybe he kinda fixed the idea a little. I have another set of prototypes based on Cornhusker's idea. Bill sent those and some viewtainers to me and I'm working on building the 2nd prototype. Haven't gotten the rigid tubing yet but will be doing so over the weekend.

I know why I have BBA but then again, its losing the battle against my hornwort and duckweed.  :Laughing:  

I finally found the root cause of the problem when I did a cleanup of my canister. Didn't maintain it for the past year or so and when I took it out for cleaning.. the amount of gunk simply "amazed" me. No wonder my shrimps and snails didn't survive last time.. too much nitrate from all that gunk.  :Sick:

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## stormhawk

> Hi Jianyang,
> your red snails are beautiful. But the species name looks a bit strange to me. I know these snails under the name Planorbis corneus. What you have should be the red color morph. It lacks some pigments and so the shell is lighter colored than the wild brwon ones. The body of the snail is red colored because it has hemoglobin to transport oxigen. BTW, there is also a color morph / strain which has a colorless shell as well as a blue one.


Hi Robert, yes I am not certain of their actual scientific name but these guys breed true to their colour. According to the person who gave me these, he said his started from just 5 individuals.

I see the names corneus and rubrum used together to describe this snail on some websites, for example Planorbis corneus/rubrum. I thought they'd probably be rubrum since they've bred true. They seem to have a shorter set of antennae as compared to the usual brown ones. Of the browns I know that there's the brown and red forms of corneus but they interbreed freely and the babies are usually brown when the two forms are crossed. It was mentioned that the red colour is recessive.




> Regarding these horn snails, there was a larger import to Europe in the last weeks. They appeared in our LFS in smaller quantities also a few months ago when I bought two of them. The grow quite fast in freshwater. The shell of my yellow-olive one grew about 1cm in a half year. That's pretty fast in my opinion. But it developed no new spikes. My yellow-live one often tries to mate with my olive one which is not possible, they seem to be two different Clithon species.


Yes the horn snails grow quickly. My last remaining horned snail has grown quite a far bit and its still going on strong. The rest of my horned snails and zebra nerites have gone up to the big snail pond in the sky.

Here in Singapore we have a greenish-olive horned snail and a dark grey one, which mine is. They are certainly two different Clithon species. I never saw them attempting a mating but that would really be an eye-opener.

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## stormhawk

> Originally Posted by GanCW
> 
> Bill,
> They cost S$1 = US$0.60 each.
> 
> 
> Gosh, that's cheap! Who do I paypal, plus express shipping?  
> I'd want maybe 12-16 of them. Didn't check, but is it asexual reproduction?
> 
> ...


Hi Bill,

I can get them for you via a private order with my local LFS guy. But the sizes are pretty small (roughly 1.5cm in shell size), the striped version shown on the 1st page of this thread is even smaller, less than 1cm in shell size. They have bat snails? (looks like a freshwater version of the limpet to me) and some of the nerites too.

They're a neat snail to have but I think they don't reproduce asexually like most of the other snails.

If you don't mind the sizes, then its no problem in getting them. I can add them on to Ron's box.

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## ruyle

Jian Yang,
How big do these horn snails get? If they get as big as a golfball, I may
not want them  :Shocked:  If they stay under an inch, that would be good.
The one in Gan's pic, is that a striped one? 

Wright informs me that I should check with F &WL (Fish and Wildlife) to
see if snails can go with fish in the same box. Since I want express
courier, do they have the same stringent regs? Do they fall under the same
inspection routines as government-owned transport(?) that's what I 
need to find out. Courier express is the only way to go be it FedEx or someone else.

Bill

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## stormhawk

As far as I know they remain pretty small. Less than an inch at max size I think. The young ones are even smaller but the spikes are evident at that size.

The nerites however are a lot larger. They'll get into sizes around 4 cm or so. I had seen one huge Zebra Nerite sometime ago and it was the same size as an adult golden apple snail.

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## ruyle

> As far as I know they remain pretty small. Less than an inch at max size I think. The young ones are even smaller but the spikes are evident at that size.


Deborah and I are very interested in these! I'm sure she doesn't want any
snail the size the apples get....

LMK, what you find, and please get some of these for yourself. I think I 
still have Ronnie's paypal address, but if not, I'll be emailing him  :Wink:  

Bill

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## stormhawk

I'll keep you updated, either via email or through here. Send me a note via email just to remind me. I'll see what I can do regarding the snails, or, Mr Ronnie here can help you order some from his regular LFS haunt.  :Laughing:

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## ruyle

Jian Yang,
Just found out from Wright that express courier falls under the same inspections,
etc, as regular mail. That means the customs form should
be a frank presentation of contents. Any hiccup in this, and it's instant
FUBAR! That's life, across the pond....  :Sad:  Tomorrow I'm going to check if
snails can be in the same box as the fish. Will keep you posted.

Bill

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## Piscesgirl

> I'm sure she doesn't want any 
> snail the size the apples get


Yes, please no snailzillas at this time -- I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my clown loaches....  :Confused:

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## stormhawk

The problem with the snails is that some species (usually not the Clithon or the nerites) are hosts to some particularly nasty parasites. Thats why them F&WL folks would be pretty concerned about a shipment of snails.

See this for a disgusting GIF for the parasite that attacks snails and birds are an intermediate host:

http://people.smu.edu/eheise/Leucoch..._paradoxum.htm

And this particular human disease linked to snails being the intermediate host for the parasite:

http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~schisto/O...rchis.egg.html

and this:

http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~schisto/O...ragonimus.html

plus this:

Snail Fever/Bilharzia/Schistosomiasis
http://www.lenntech.com/Waterborne-d...istomiasis.htm

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## stormhawk

> I'm sure she doesn't want any 
> snail the size the apples get
> 
> 
> Yes, please no snailzillas at this time -- I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my clown loaches....


Deb and Bill,

The "snailzilla" Nerite is actually harmless. My crew of tiger nerites and the horned snails wiped out ALL of my spot algae within a week and actually munched on parts of the BBA. Good snails really. I'd keep these nerite "Snailzillas" anytime.  :Laughing: 

I find them to be tough critters and they have survived longer in my tank than any other invert I put in. Yes, my shrimps all died once they entered the tank. It was within hours and all of them turned pink and died.

But right now it's a good sign seeing the red rams running all over the tank. Even the little juveniles are zipping about with no problems.  :Laughing: 

Since they will readily interbreed with the regular brown rams, I won't add these to my tank since the brown colour is the dominant colour and any resulting babies would be all brown and the red will disappear since its recessive.

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## ruyle

Jian Yang,
Yes, give them a bath in a praziquantel solution before sending!  :Laughing:  
The horn snails' natural habitat is salt marshes, not a schistosome-friendly
environment. Anyhoo, will be checking tomorrow  :Wink:  

Bill

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## Piscesgirl

> Yes, my shrimps all died once they entered the tank.


Why did the shrimps die? Was it related to the snails or just an entirely different thing?  :Sad:

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## stormhawk

Deb, I'm really not sure what killed them. I know I hadn't been cleaning up my canister filter for ages so I guess maybe the waste matter building up in there had something to do with their deaths. Right now I keep seeing the snails remaining pretty happy with their new surroundings.

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## Piscesgirl

Oh ok. I guess it would be a definite possibility that the filter muck would kill shrimp -- my friend lost her Crystal Reds within an hour of disturbing her tank substrate (not just a little disturbance I suspect). I'm very careful now not to mess with more than a plant at a time.

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## stormhawk

Oh well, finally succumbed to temptation and I took home two tiny striped horned snails like what Choy pictured in the 1st post for this thread. Their shell is not more than 1cm in length. Really tiny but the black stripes are very vivid. I'll try to take an image of them and post it up.

At the price I paid, they cost me 16 cents per 1 mm (and that's just one snail!)  :Laughing:

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## Piscesgirl

*anticipates the pictures of the snails* 

 :Very Happy:

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## stormhawk

Deb, I want to take a pic of them in my photo tank and position them nicely on a small piece of driftwood.  ::smt003: 

I'll post it up later when I've taken it. They're really small and real cute too.  :Laughing:

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## Piscesgirl

I'm going to bet they are easier to 'position' than the Killies!  :Laughing:   :Laughing:   :Laughing:

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## stormhawk

Well they sort of are easier to position. Besides, these guys really stick to your hand! They're not like the zebra nerites. Those take time to come out and stick on your palm.  :Laughing:

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## stormhawk

Okay finally got an image of one of little fellas.  :Laughing: 



I did some research online and some Japanese hobbyist sites think these are probably young _Clithon corona_. A German site however, thinks they're probably small _Clithon souleyetana_. 

But one thing's for sure, this little bugger is definitely a _Clithon_ species. Nothing much I could get out of from applesnail.net forums but a trip report on www.molluscan.com (a local SG site) documents the presence of this particular species in Pangandaran, Java, Indonesia.

If anyone has a shell guidebook, especially for Indo-Pacific shells, it would be great.  :Wink:

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## Piscesgirl

Oh he's cute, Jianyang! (by the way, do you sleep ever?)  :Laughing:  

Here's some good info:

http://members.aol.com/mkohl2/Neritidae.html


http://members.aol.com/Mkohl1/Gastropods.html

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