Spixi Snail

About

People buy the spixi snail because it eats pest snails, and the honest version of that claim is narrower and more useful than the shelf label. Asolene spixii is a South American apple snail from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, with a flattened, cream-and-brown banded shell about 3 cm across. What it eats is egg clutches. b-aqua calls it a regulator of bladder, ramshorn and Malaysian trumpet snails whose clutches it eats, and no source we could find establishes that it hunts adult pest snails — while Shrimp and Snail Breeder says the opposite of hungry animals, which 'may consume eggs and smaller snails'. The honest reading of thin hobby evidence is that a keeper who reports a pest population 'wiped out' is mostly watching recruitment stop rather than a massacre. An assassin snail hunts; a spixi starves the next generation. That works, but slowly, and it will not clear an established crowd of adults. On plants the sources genuinely disagree, and it is worth reading that disagreement rather than averaging it: this is not plant-safe the way a nerite is. Well-fed adults show little interest in healthy vegetation and do at most cosmetic damage — small holes rather than stripped leaves — while juveniles and hungry snails go for soft, tender growth: floating plants such as frogbit, cryptocorynes, mosses and new shoots. Hard-leaved anubias and java fern are ignored. Feed it well and a planted tank lives with it comfortably; leave it hungry in a carpeted nano and it will not.

Care

Hard, alkaline water (pH 7.2-8, GH 5-18) for shell health, 24-28 °C, and a tank from 40 litres — published minimums run from 10 to 80 litres, so err upward if you want more than one. Feed it deliberately: blanched courgette, spinach and carrot, sinking wafers, the occasional protein food. Copper-sensitive, like every snail, so check fertilisers and fish medications. It breeds in fresh water, laying gelatinous clutches of 10-30 eggs underwater on hard surfaces and leaf undersides rather than above the waterline, so numbers do climb, but slowly and mainly above 26 °C. Keep it away from loaches, puffers and large cichlids, which eat snails; away from crayfish of every kind — b-aqua names all of them, the dwarf CPO included — and from predatory Macrobrachium shrimp; and away from Marisa cornuarietis, with which it crossbreeds and whose hybrids are the more aggressive animal.

Diet

Opportunistic omnivore and detritivore. Eats the egg clutches of bladder and ramshorn snails rather than hunting adult snails, so it stops a pest population growing instead of clearing one. Feed vegetables and sinking food; a hungry spixi starts on soft-leaved plants.

Telling males from females

There is no reliable way to sex this species by eye. That is the honest answer, not a gap in our data.

Also in these lists

Similar species

Same category and the closest water parameters — if this species isn't quite it, start here.

Sold in Lithuania

These Lithuanian shops listed this species in their public catalogue (checked August 8, 2026). Stock moves — ask before you travel.

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Frequently asked questions

What tank size does a Spixi Snail need?

A Spixi Snail needs an aquarium of at least 40 litres (10.6 US gallons) with a footprint at least 45 cm (17.7 in) long — for this species, swimming length matters as much as raw volume.

What water parameters does a Spixi Snail need?

Spixi Snail does best at 20–30 °C (68–86 °F), pH 6.5–8.5 and a general hardness of 5–18 °dGH.

Is the Spixi Snail suitable for beginners?

Yes — Spixi Snail is one of the easier species to keep and forgives typical first-tank mistakes, as long as the aquarium is cycled and maintained.

Sources

• MolluscaBase — Asolene spixii (A. d'Orbigny, 1838)
• Wikipedia — Asolene spixii
• b-aqua — Asolene spixii
• Shrimp and Snail Breeder — Spixi Snail: Care, Diet and Breeding
• Plantsam — Asolene spixii (Spixi Snail, Zebra Apple Snail)