Slow to breed and not destructive, white wizards could be the problem-free snail your tank has been crying out for.
SNAILS. LOVE OR hate them, you can’t help but admire their tenacity and sheer variation; over one-fifth of described marine fauna can be attributed to the order mollusca. Various estimates have suggested there are as many as between 165,000-180,000 mollusc species (including those currently undescribed), of which almost 80% are what are known as gastropods. Or, in layman’s terms, snails and slugs.
Yet, despite the group’s scope, only a select few are found in the aquatic trade, and a quick look through any fishkeeping social media shows the stark division between proponents and critics.
Certainly, there are cons to the most commonly available species: apple snails, Pomacea sp., have a voracious appetite for plants, while the fecundity of those in the Melanoides, Planorbis and Lymnaea genera mean their populations can quickly reach plague-like proportions. And, whilst unable to breed in freshwater, nerite snails leave white dots all over any tank they’re added to.
Exasperated aquarists may think that there are no good options for gastropod additions, but in recent times demand for freshwater molluscs has led to several new species entering the trade—likely accidentally at first, and then deliberately as they gain a following.
Enter the wizard
One such new face (or should that be foot?) on the snail scene is Filopaludina martensi, commonly called the white wizard snail. Despite first descriptions being published as long ago as the 1860s, it has only recently begun to make an appearance in the hobby, though it is a staple part of the diet in several countries across its natural range of Southeast Asia.
At first glance it more closely resembles a terrestrial snail, with a high off-white shell accented by concentric blue detailing, and a contrasting dark peristome (the outer lip of the aperture, or shell opening). Its foot, the soft, muscular ‘body’ of the animal within the shell, is navy flecked with pale dots.
Whilst the striking appearance of white wizard snails sets them apart from others in the trade, the differences aren’t just surface deep; F. martensi’s biology is undeniably quirky, too.
Whilst many aquatic snails are sold under the misleading moniker of ‘clean-up crew’ for their algivorous diets, Wizard snails lack the sandpaper-like radula—a sheet of muscle with minute chitin ridges in the animal’s mouth—and long g
