I picked a brown-lipped snail along with some isopods on my trip to a local NYC park in April 2023.
This is an adult snail measuring about 2cm.
You can see the thickened lip around the opening.
I am going to put this snail in a 29-gallon tank— paludarium I built for housing Eastern Newts.
The terrestrial Brown-lipped snail should be comfortable on the land platform of this tank.
The land platform is covered with live mosses and plants.
I have tree bark here for isopods and springtails to feed on.
Isopods and springtails feed on whatever organic waste produced by all the green growing here.
The Brown-lipped snail should find plenty of food here, and will contribute to the waste management.
Also, I have four types of aquatic snails in the water part of the tank.
On the same trip to the park, I picked another type of terrestrial snail.
Those snails grow to a much smaller size and could be suitable for feeding my newts.
Here you can see the sizes of both adult snails compared to each other.
The brown-lipped snail explores different parts of the tank every day.
It makes looking for the snail and observing it even more interesting to me.
The brown-lipped snail likes to climb on the walls for picking algae, water source, and cooling down.
The temperature in this tank is 72-76 F all year around.
This is a sustaining self-feeding paludarium.
Minimalistic maintenance allows me to spend most of my time enjoying the view :)
The tank is covered with a lid with small holes for air circulation.
The lid keeps snails and isopods in and reduces water evaporation greatly.
Watching the snail gracefully moving around is very relaxing.
The snail and isopods often gathered on the same plant for feeding.
There is plenty of food for all of them to coexist peacefully.
Here you can see my other aquatic snails.
It's the middle of June, and the snail is enjoying flowering moss, munching on one stem at a time.
My newt-a-girl shows up curious about what I am watching.
The adult brown-lipped snails are too big to be eaten by Eastern Newts.
Toothless Eastern Newts eat only what they can swallow in one take.
By the end of the summer, I start preparing the tank for new projects.
This land platform will be replaced soon with a new modification.
So, it's the time to say goodbye to the brow-lipped snail.
I enjoyed watching the snail for about 5 months in this tank.
Tomorrow I will release the snail back to the place in the park where I originally picked it up.
The snail has a couple more nice, warm months to enjoy doing whatever snails do in nature.
Brown-lipped snails make very nice additions to a paludarium.
Have fun and happy snails :)
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