Hello sustainable growers.
This is Jonathan from Melbourne Aquaponics.
In this video today, we will talk about snails in aquaponics.
So we will see if snails are a good thing or a bad thing for the aquaponics setup.
We will see what snails eat, what are their functions and their actions on the aquaponics
ecosystem and what can we do with snails in aquaponics?
So there are plenty of species of snails on the planet and some of those snails are able
to live into the water.
You got some freshwater snails and some salt water snails, you know, snails that are living
into the sea.
So here we are talking about the snails that are adapted to fresh water.
So we call them fresh water snails or aquatic snails, and those little animals are really,
really well adapted to living into the water.
Now, some of them still live with some lungs and therefore they need to breathe the air
from the surface but some of them developed some gills, and they are able to breathe completely
submerged into the water.
The question I receive so often is are snails good or bad for aquaponics?
Because you may be aware of it, but when you buy fish from the aquarium shop or when you
get some fish from the fish farm or when even you get some plants, aquatic plants, and you
put them into your fish tank, sometimes you got some eggs of snails that are fixed onto
those plants.
And the snails can develop into your aquaponics setup and then they can reproduce very quickly
and you can have a lot of them around into the fish tank and sometimes even into the
growbed.
So the question is, are snails good or bad for the aquaponics setup?
You know that I really like to have a very wide biodiversity in my aquaponics setup,
and therefore, I think that snails are really, really good for the aquaponics ecosystem.
There are different varieties of snails of freshwater snails and some of them have a
better or more interesting action than others, but generally, I think it's good to open the
ecosystem and to add new species into the ecosystem.
And I will tell you now why I think that snails are so beneficial for the aquaponics environment
especially for the ecosystem.
So snails are some living creatures.
They are molluscs actually.
Most of them are vegetarians and they eat algae.
So most of them eat benthic algae which is basically the algae that are living on the
wall of the setup.
So they are living on the walls and on the bottom of the setup.
So I often receive some questions about how to avoid algae in aquaponics.
Well, having some snails is not going to remove all the algae, but it's going to limit their
growth.
So it's a really good way to manage the quantity of algae that you have.
Now, let's have a picture of the aquaponics ecosystem we have here.
We have some fish that we feed every day with some fish food and those fish are going to
pooh into the water and this ammonia that is produced is going to feed the whole ecosystem.
Right?
It’s going to feed your bacteria and your plants, but in between you got lots of different
animals.
That are going to break down all the organic matter in very small particles.
But in the aquaponics setup, we also got a competition, right, the competition of the
algae because they got some food into the water.
So if you got a bit of light that is going into your fish tank, you're going to have
a growth of algae in the fish tank.
So the snails, most of the snails are really, really well adapted to this environment because
they love eating algae.
They can eat a lot and lot of algae per day.
So they are -- some of them spend the whole day looking for food, looking for a spot of
algae.
So if you got some in your aquaponics setup, they’re going to look around and try to
find those algae and eat them.
So you're going to really decrease this quantity of algae.
And now, algae are not really bad but as I just said, they are competition.
They're going to eat all the nitrogen that will be beneficial for the plants.
And the algae as they are, if you leave them as they are into the aquaponics setup, the
fish are not going to eat them so obviously, when they die, they’re going to break down
and they’ll release the nitrogen that was stuck.
But during the time when they live, they don't really generate anything for the aquaponics
ecosystem excepted if you’ve got other creatures that are able to eat them.
But here, if you introduce the snails, the snails are going to be able to eat those algae
and they're going to be able to reproduce and to generate a certain biomass so this
biomass of snails.
Then you’ve got some fish that are able to eat the snails straightaway.
So as you know, snails have shells.
When you look at the shells of the snails, some of them are extremely hard such as this
one.
This one is what we call the mystery snails.
And there, their shell -- the shell is very, very strong.
It’s very hard.
So the fish will have some trouble to be able to break it and to eat the snails.
But some other species of snails are way softer.
I got some -- here I got a very, very tiny snail.
It’s quite hard to see, but I think you can see it.
There is that little tiny snail.
The fish are able to break the shell because the shell is very thin.
So then depending on the species of fish you have, some of the fish, they got some – in
the throat, they got two kinds of big teeth that are able to break the shell of the snail,
and therefore, they are able to eat the snails.
So that's a perfect thing to have into your aquaponics setup because when you got those
kinds of snails, what is happening is that the -- I mean the algae that can grow on the
wall is going to be consumed by those snails.
And therefore, a certain biomass is going to be produced of very high quality food for
the fish because those snails they are full vitamins.
They are very high in terms of protein, as well.
So it's a very interesting food.
It's live food, it's exceptional for the fish.
So if you have good species of snails and good species of fish that are able to break
the shell, because certain fish are even able to break the shell of the -- of certain species
of snails that are quite strong.
So if you have the good mix that's perfect because here you close the whole loop of the
ecosystem.
What I mean by that is here in an aquaponics setup, the loop is open because we are producing
plants but the plants -- you can feed your fish with the plants sometimes, with the vegetables,
but most of the time, you still need to add some fish food into your aquaponics setup.
But if you put snails into the aquaponics setup then you really close the loop because
the algae are going to be able to be eaten by the fish, and therefore, you really close
the system because when the fish poo into the water and this nitrogen is going to be
able to produce new algae and the algae are going to be able to produce new snails and
the snails are going to be eaten by the fish again.
So it really closes the loop.
Now, when I say close the loop obviously it closes a loop, but when you remove something
from your system, when you harvest your veggies or your fish, you remove some nitrogen from
the system, right, from the setup.
So you need -- you still need to add some food.
Right?
But at least a part of the waste of the food is used to grow new food for the fish which
is a very, very high profile, very high quality of food.
So that's why I think snails are very, very interesting for aquaponics.
They are part of those animals where we have to do a lot of research in the next years
to be able to develop a system where basically we completely close the loop.
So we can work with snails, we can work with worms, but worms, the problem is to collect
them from the setup.
So those two – those two kinds of animals are for me a very, very interesting topic,
and I think a lot of research needs to be done on those.
Now, the other thing is that they spawn into the aquaponics setup, and sometimes the population
can become completely unmanageable.
Sometimes you got too many snails into the aquaponics setup, and if you don't have the
fish that eat them the population of snails is going to be saturated.
You don't have any really negative impact on your aquaponics setup, but it's always
good to balance the different populations of creatures.
One of the solutions to control the population of snails is to introduce another species
of snails that is going to be able to eat the other snails.
So you see you’ve got different species of snails.
Most of them are able to eat vegetables and especially algae, but some of them are predators
of the other snails.
Now, most of the snails are able to breed and to spawn the egg into the water.
So they spawn a kind of jelly with some little eggs inside, but some of them especially the
apple snail which is a very big snail that can be as big as my fist, those kinds of snails
they can spawn outside of the water.
The snails live into the water and can go out of the surface and spawn outside of the
water.
So again, I think that's very fascinating not only because of the ecosystem.
Yes, it has a positive impact on the ecosystem.
I think each time we add a bit of life into the ecosystem, it adds a bit of interest to
the aquaponics setup.
I think using more things you have more different shapes and different styles of life you have
into your aquaponics setup and the most interesting your aquaponics setup is going to be for yourself
and for your friends.
So my recommendation is to put some snails into the aquaponics setup.
Some of them worth descent amounts of money, and they can reach up to $10 per snail.
So that's a very high price.
Most of the times the price is below, but depending on the species, you can have some
very, very expensive snails.
So if you have just a few snails in your aquaponics setup and they breed so this is also a good
way to make a bit of money and to pay the electricity bill.
Now, if you don't have the good fish appropriate to your snails, if the fish are not able to
break the shell of the snails to eat them, what you can do is to simply squash them by
yourself between your fingers, and you throw them into the aquaponics setup into the fish
tank and the fish are going to eat them straightaway because this is exceptional for them.
That's a really good food.
So yeah, if you don't have the fish adapted to the snails, just squash them with your
fingers.
It just takes a few minutes.
From time to time you just squash a few here and there and you’re going to add.
It's going to be a very good source of food for your fish.
So when it comes to the species of snails, there are different species.
Just make sure to have the species that are adapted to the temperature of your aquaponics
setup and to the water parameters.
So the easiest thing is to go into the closest dam and to look.
Most of the time, you will be able to find snails by yourself, if you look into the water.
If you don't, you can buy some.
If you’ve got some snails that reproduce into your aquaponics setup, don't just release
them into the environment because they become -- they can become a very big pest for the
aquatic environment.
They can just take the place of other species and it will be dramatic.
So if you want to buy snails from an aquarium shop, you can buy different species.
You’ve got the apple snail.
That's a snail that is really, really big.
It's very impressive.
It looks amazing into the fish tank.
So you have the golden snails and the ivory snails.
They are two kinds of snails that are very efficient to clean the wall of the tank because
they eat so much algae every day.
The snail that is eating the other species of snails is called assassin snail.
There are other species as well that are able to attack other species of snails.
So this is one to keep in mind.
If one day you have a problem in your aquaponics setup where you got too many snails, it's
never really an issue, but if you can’t follow up by squashing them, just introduce
a few assassin snails and they would take care of the problem.
There is the Japanese trapdoor snail which has a kind of opercula that is – that it
can close.
It’s like a door that is at the entrance of the shell, and when there is a problem,
it just goes inside the shell and it closes the door.
So it's quite interesting to have this kind of species as well, and the trumpet snail
which is a snail that can dig into the media to go and to grab some food that is buried.
So if you got some “dead” pellets, it’s going to find them.
It’s going to eat them without any problem.
I hope you learned a lot of things about snails, and I hope you're going to introduce some
into your aquaponics setup.
Before anything, please don't forget to get your free guide from the description of the
video.
It’s a very interesting guide to build your own aquaponics setup.
It’s completely free.
So get it and use it to build your aquaponics setup and see you in the next video.
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Have a good crop!