# ramshorn genetics?



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

I have these awesome snails and have had many differant color pop up in my tank. I got my snails from plants as hitch hikers. I wanted to do selective breeding but don't have enough tanks. I had blue snails appear in my tank I had red snails pop up too. Right now all I have are browns. The browns will produce differant color every now and then. 

What I should have done when I had blue rams was take out the blue rams only and put them in a tank with just them. 

Select the ones you like and get rid of the ones you don't want. I am mad at my self for not doing a better job at selective breeding mine because I had a few chances to have red, blues gold, blue leopards, pink. Now I have just brown As soon as I find the color I want I will start a breeding project.


----------



## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

I've never intentionally bred them but I have ramshorns in my livebearer tank that I found living in a drainage ditch. They're brown to black except for one red one that was born in my tank. So apparently the red is a recessive color and present in wild populations.


----------



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

Yes the red is recessive. The drown is domaniate. The blues will breed true most of the time but brows will pop up now and then. 

Here is one of my blues that popes up out of no where but I have yet to see blues now. My rams population got hurt bad when I re did my tank. Now they are making a come back. I hope I get some more blues.

I found te blues to not be as hardy or long lived. 








One of the parents of that blue.









Here is a golden one also just popped up.








Then I had a pink is one 









Right now my cool ones have died off and I have the brown offspring of then. All those colors I had came from just a few hitch hikers I did not put them there. 

From what I read blues breed true most of the time but a brown can pop up every now. When I had my blues they always threw blue looking snails some had better color then others. Then they bred with the browns and I have mostly browns.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Thank you for answering some questions. Genetics is a hobby of mine. I've bred some mammals and reptiles, but am now interested in aquatics. The ramshorns appear to be an interesting animal to breed.

Are serious breeders of ramshorns few and far in between? 

Anyone know names for shell color/foot color? Or are they really not standardized?

Or does shell not matter and only foot color does for reds and pinks?

I've read about:

Red

Pink

Yellow

Blue (Shell, foot color not matter?)

Leopard (Shell, foot color not matter?)

Brown

Any others?


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

I don't know of any black ramshorns coming from the common browns. (UK has black ramshorns, but they are a different species.)


----------



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

I think that these colors just happen then people selectively breed them. I know my differant colors just happened. Yes they go by shell color.The red body snails do tend to help make the shell color look reddish. If they are not red they are brown body or pink,tan, dark brown. 

There are people that just selectively breed colors they like. I have heard of green rams horn but yet to see any. People selectively breed them but I don't think it's that big of a project. 

If you are in to genetics and breeding the rams horn is a great one to play with. If you do get into it I would like to see how it goes. Good luck.


----------



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

Red- is body and shell

Pink - is shell and body but body can be light brown.

Yellow - this is mainly the shell that is yellow

Blue - this is mainly the shell color blues can has a grey body or brown.

Leopard this is when the shell have a pattern nothing to do with body. You can have gold, brown, and blue leopard marked shells. 

Brown - this is shell or body they are your basic wilds. There are differant shades of brown. 

There are pearl this is basically a light blue. 

I have seen clear or almost clear shells. I had one pop up in my tank but he did not do well I say it's a weak strain. 

He green is a new one I have yet to see. 

Rams horns are awesome have fun with it.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

So the shell for a pink is pink?

Thanks for the explanations!


----------



## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

I am selectively breeding ramshorns. Treetom and I have a few different colors between us and we are always working toward new color morphs. I was so excited earlier, when I found 3 yellow? gold? tan? Whatever you want to call them, but we are already thinking of ways to use them to come up with some nice colored ramshorns. I loved the good colors in the ones you got from me, what did you think? A result of selective breeding for the best colors from the snails. I will post about them in my journal, if you'd like to follow. The link is in my sig.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

The 105g journal? Yes, I'd like to follow. Always good to see fellow breeders.


----------



## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

Soothing Shrimp said:


> The 105g journal? Yes, I'd like to follow. Always good to see fellow breeders.


I know, it's refreshing to talk about the betterment of these snails as opposed to seeing people talking about eradicating them. BTW, I added some snail pics in my journal. Some cooler snails are too small to really get pics of, but I will reveal them all in due time


----------



## joon (Jul 17, 2004)

i love to keep ramshorn too 

what do u think about this white shell pink ramshorn?

if u see it in eye, shell is really white , and i can see pink body through the shell


----------



## joon (Jul 17, 2004)

and this guy looks purple? isnt it?


----------



## [email protected] (Apr 27, 2011)

VERY nice snails, joon. I especially like the purple one, but the white is cool also. I think the white is actually pink, but not 100% sure. Would be cool to breed that with a white-footed one to see if the offspring would turn a true white.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Very nice snails indeed. The 2nd could be a purple, but I can't really tell from the pic. As we all know ramshorns are VERY hard to take good pics of.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Joon, I sent you a pm.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

I'm just getting into ramshorns as you guys know, so I have read about and seen pics of many of them, but don't have experience with all the different colorations yet.

What do the shells of pinks look like when juvies? Are they clear, or are they actually pink shells?


----------



## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

They had some blue ramshorns at my LFS not too long ago. These things were like 2 inches big. Wish I could find some that stay around the size of common pond snails.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

I'm pretty sure what you saw was a Marisa cornuarietis. It's called a ramshorn, but is really an apple snail.

The true (European) common ramshorns we have in most tanks are small and rarely get bigger than a US quarter.


----------



## rikardob (Aug 13, 2011)

Me want.


----------



## audioaficionado (Apr 19, 2011)

I once had a tank so infested with brown and red ramshorns that I ended up killing them off with copper sulfate. Ended up kocking off half my fish too 

Now that my Nerites seem to be all dying off, I'm letting the few ramshorn hitchhikers populate the tank. They are hard to kill and impossible to pick them out before they lay some more eggs. The reason I didn't like them was they were eating my plants. Perhaps they will be OK this time if I don't let them over populate.


----------



## Soothing Shrimp (Nov 9, 2011)

Sounds like you have a good plan, audio. 

If they were eating your plants, I have no reason to doubt what you said, however have you given any thought that perhaps the ramshorns could have been eating dead or dying leaves? Their natural diet is dead and decaying things, so eating healthy plants in general isn't in their behavior. 

Of course, if you had a mutant strain, good thing you didn't take a bath in your tank. bwa-ha-ha-haaaa (Dracula impersonation.) LOL


----------



## j0onahra3 (Mar 3, 2011)

white shells are common on pinks ramshorns. And these will produce clear shelled pink-bodied babies. So, pink ramshorn snails have a clear shell when young and white/opaque shell when older. 

White ramshorns with a yellowish to white body are usually sick ramshorns. When my pink ramshorns get sick, they lose their color in their body, making them look white and not pink. 

Blue ramshorns are born with leopard spots, but they tend to fade away as they get older. Blue ramshorns can have a maroon colored body as well.

For me, leopard spotted gold ramshorns always ended up turning dark brown shelled with no leopard spots when grown. 

Also, yellow ramshorns that I've seen were also sick red ramshorns.. that got their color back once good water quality was maintained. 

This is what I gathered from my experience : )


----------

