The "golden" ones look identical to the "apple snails" on most of the apple snail sites.
The eggs also look identical, to my untrained eye, down to the color. But still no plant
eating going on. Perhaps they are related but not quite the same? The dark ones look just
like the golden, only they are brown. They are about the size of buckeyes right now.

My taro died, though. I moved it into the main pond. I found the two tiny 'shoots' covered
with string algae, then they disappeared. I don't know if they rotted off, or if the koi
ate them, (this happened right before the snails, and I suspected the algae of being the
root cause of the taro's demise-hence the purchase of the snails) but the other day, I
pulled the pot out and the root was 'stinky' so I left it out of the pond *sniff, sob* and
am going to get another next week. THIS one will stay in the spillway/veggie filter.

I took one of the tiny trapdoor snails from the spillway, and put him (her?) in one of the
betta holding tanks that had a pretty good crop of algae growing on one side, where the
light hits it. Within an hour, you could see an enormous bare spot. I am going to move him
(her?) to the breeding tank next (since no breeding is going on). I introduced the dark
male to the light red female, and he even tore down the bubble next. I am going to
re-introduce HIS female after the next water change cycle.

I think snails are pretty kewl to watch. I am hoping the ones in the veggie filter will
help keep the watercress at bay. I thought at first it looked like it was dying. LOL. A
clever ruse, to lull me into complacency... hahaha.

DeAnna

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
s.com...
Yup. Thanks to KenCo.

It looks like there may soon be baby mystery (what I have learned are also called
"apple")
snails.

Nah. Not the same, mystery snails are dark to black and get the size of a
ping pong ball at best. Apple snails are golden and get the size of a
baseball and they would eat anacharis like candy. One ponder (Roark, I
believe) had a tree limb weeping into his pond and found the apple snails
stripped it.

~ jan (Do you know where your water quality is?)

I may have to send LOTS of people snails if this keeps up!

They are doing a fine job of scarfing all this nasty algae! And they haven't touched
the
plants. Nothing has, but my biggest koi, and he isn't eating any, just uprooting the
ones
potted in pea gravel. I topped them with larger stones, and that ended his digging fun.
LOL. But no plants (even the anacharis) are being eaten. I guess that is a good thing!


DeAnna