Red-rimmed melania
Needle - screw crown ( Melanoides tuberculata )
The needle - screw crown ( Melanoides tuberculata [Note 1] ), generally known in the aquarium hobby Malay or Malaysian tower snail, is a Southeast Asia to East Africa -based freshwater snail, but they are as invasive species can also be found in Europe today. These snails have a about three centimeters wide and up to a centimeter wide, like a tower be subdued housing with mostly eight to 15 turns. The respiration takes place through gills. The needle - crown snails are nocturnal and spend the day preferably in the ground. The animals are dioecious, but proliferate mainly by parthenogenesis. They are viviparous and multiply under favorable conditions quite quickly. The number of juveniles which varies also depending by the size of the dam depending on the size of the dam between one and up to five pups are between 1.5 and maximum 4.3 mm.
About the naturalization of the screw in Süßwässern on the Gulf of Mexico, which has been proven since 1952, the biologists are not very pleased. You can transmit parasitic diseases of waterfowl. On the detour via crabs as intermediate host of the lung worm can also be applied to mammals. In addition, the introduced species displaces the domestic spot snails in the same biotope.
Aquarium maintenance
In the aquarium, these animals are widely used because they are relatively often found on plants from pet shops and so accidentally reach into many aquariums. However, they are quite well targeted in pools because they loosen the soil surface and feed on plant matter and food residues. Even healthy plants are eaten in excessive trimming. The worm is in accordance peaceful society, such as with screws or other dwarf shrimp, very often observed during the day in the aquarium. In lively society and in very fine-grained ground but it is located mainly in the substrate and is mainly visible at night. These snails are a good indicator of water quality. Should they increasingly turn up during the day or even more frequently aspire to the disc toward the surface, this may indicate poor water quality ( nitrite, etc.).
Swell
- Alexandra Behrendt: Tower snails. Caridina 3/2007, ISSN 1863-2696.
- Melanoides tuberculatus - needle - screw crown ( visited 5 February 2008 )
- Jürgen H. Jungbluth and Dietrich von Knorre: Trivial names of the land and freshwater molluscs of Germany ( Gastropoda et Bivalvia ). Mollusca, 26 (1): 105-156, ISSN 1864-5127 Dresden 2008 PDF