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How To Use Cuttlebone For Snails To Promote A Healthy Shell!

The popularity of keeping snails as pets is spiking right now and more and more people are getting involved and as you may expect, this has resulted in more and more people reaching out with a range of questions about keeping snails.

One of the more common questions that we have noticed people asking is about using cuttlebone for snails due to the various benefits that it can offer your pet snails.

Just in case you are not aware, cuttlebone is one of, if not the best source of calcium for snails allowing them to get all the calcium they require for a healthy shell in their diet.

Although eggshells are a very popular option, cuttlebone can actually be a better option in most cases and more and more people who keep pet snails are switching over from eggshells and other calcium sources to cuttlebone with each month that passes.

As we see such a wide range of different questions about using cuttlebone with snails, we have decided to publish this article going over the various commonly asked questions that we see.

Our goal is to try and help as many of our readers who keep pet snails as possible and to help you get this excellent source of calcium into their diet.

As we see a number of different questions relating to cuttlebone and snails, we have added a table of contents below so you can quickly and easily navigate to specific sections of the article too.

How To Use Cuttlebone For Snails!

If you purchase commercial cuttlebone for snails then using cuttlebone for your snails is as simple as adding it to their tank or whatever you keep your snails in and letting them consume the cuttlebone as they wish.

Snails are able to regulate their calcium intake and will consume the cuttlebone when they need it removing the need for you to worry about them eating too much of it.

Although some of the commercial cuttlebone packs do some with a grinder allowing you to scrape or grind parts of the bone down to make it easier for your snails to eat it, this is not required in many situations when using the cuttlebone for fish.

That said though, if you want to, you are able to use the tools that come with the cuttlebone to grind it down but most snails will be able to consume the cuttlebone as it is.

Always try to purchase the cuttlebone from a reputable source that has designed the cuttlebone for use with pets too.

Cuttlebone can have a number of uses with different use cases needing it to be prepared in slightly different ways but snails can usually still consume cuttlebone that has not been specifically designed for use with pets anyway.

Do Snails Eat Cuttlebone?

The majority of snails will happily eat cuttlebone due to it being easy for them to break down and consume while also being an excellent source of calcium for their diet to maintain a healthy shell.

Although it can be difficult to see the signs of your snails consuming the cuttlebone once it has first been added to their tanks, over time, you will notice the texture of the cuttlebone change as your snails start to work on it.

Please note that as with most food types, cuttlebone should be used as a part of a well balanced diet for your pet snails and not their only or primary food source.

We can’t stress this enough but thankfully, due to the spike in popularity of keeping pet snails, there are a number of high-quality commercial snail foods on the market these days or you can just feed them kitchen scraps too.

As we touched on earlier in the article, you are actually able to use the tools that some commercial cuttlebone for snails comes with to grind it down and sprinkle it over other food types anyway making it easier for your snails to consume.

If you are keeping water snails as a part of your aquarium then you need to realise that some snails will actually consume the cuttlebone directly but others will absorb the tiny particles that break off and float around in the water but this is not an issue if you keep land snails.

Will Mystery Snails Eat Cuttlebone?

Mystery snails will eat cuttlebone both directly by feeding directly from the bone in small amounts and indirectly by consuming the small parts of cuttlebone in the water of their tank.

Cuttlebone can be a great addition to the diet of your mystery snails and help the snails grow and maintain a healthy shell with minimal effort required on your part.

We often see people worry that using cuttlebone for their mystery snails or other water based snails will cause issues with the water in their aquarium but this is rarely correct.

Normal cuttlebone should not cause problems with the purity or pH of your aquariums water and although any fish in the aquarium may nibble on the cuttlebone, it should not hurt them in any way while offering your mystery snails a great addition to their diet.

If you wish, you can easily break the cuttlebone up into much smaller parts so the total amount of cuttlebone in your aquarium at any given time is considerably smaller than it otherwise would be.

As we mentioned earlier, putting cuttlebone into your aquarium for your mystery snails should not cause any issues with water purity of pH anyway but some people so prefer to only add small amounts at a time anyway.

Do Snails Need Cuttlebone?

Although cuttlebone is not essential for snails, it is one of the best calcium sources available both for their digestive systems and your wallet.

This is why offering cuttlebone to pet snails has become so popular in the last two or three years as it is easy for snails to consume while also being very cheap.

It actually offers a better source of calcium than eggshells in many situations too helping to push cuttlebone slightly ahead too.

There are some excellent sources of Cuttlefish Bone for snails these days too where the cuttlebone has been fully prepared for your snails and is ready to go right out of the bag.

This can help to save you a bunch of time when it comes to actually getting other sources of cuttlebone ready for your snails while the packs often only cost a dollar more than the none prepared packs too.

Many people do still use eggshells as the primary calcium source for their pet snails but in our opinion and the opinion of many snail owners, cuttlebone is the better option.

There are also organic calcium sources that you are able to feed your snails to help them maintain a healthy shell too but cuttlebone tends to work out to be cheaper than those too keeping it in the top spot.

How Much Cuttlebone For Snails?

Most snails will regulate their calcium intake themselves meaning you can drop a full cuttlebone in their tank and they will consume it as they need.

Some snail owners do choose to only add small parts of the cuttlebone at any given time though were as others will decide to only grind small parts of the cuttlebone up to offer to their snails but all three methods do work well.

Youngers snails can consume more cuttlebone than older snails too due to them needing more calcium to allow their shell to grow at a faster pace too.

Depending on the exact type of snail that you keep, this can shock some people how something so small can eat so much cuttlebone as well as other commercial snail foods too.

In our opinion, it is usually better to offer your snails more cuttlebone than they will require for their calcium intake than too little.

As we have mentioned a few times in the article, snails will usually auto-regulate their calcium intake and naturally stop consuming the cuttlebone when they don’t need to increase their calcium stores.

Due to this, it is usually better to allow them to have as much as they need and let them leave what they don’t ned rather than offer them too little and your snails end up with issues with their shells.

Do Land Snails Like Cuttlebones?

Although cuttlebone is made from cuttlefish that live in the seas and oceans, land snails tend to really enjoy having cuttlebone added to their diet.

Not only is cuttlebone easier for them to consume than some other popular calcium sources but they seem to enjoy it more than others with plenty of snail owners reporting that given the choice of multiple types of calcium, their snails go for the cuttlebone.

We are fully aware that there are flavored cuttlebone products on the market and we would not recommend that you offer these to your pet snails.

These are usually designed for other use cases and larger pats rather than snails. Some of these flavored cuttlebone products may cause problems with your snails with some snails not enjoying the taste so just stick to the normal cuttlebone with no additional flavoring.

As we touched on earlier in the article, water based snails also tend to really enjoy cuttlebone but different types of water snail will consume the cuttlebone in slightly different ways to each other.

The majority of land snails will just eat the cuttlebone directly though or consume it when ground into their other food types if you choose to take that route instead.

How Do You Clean Cuttlefish Bones For Snails?

The easiest way to clean cuttlebone for your pet snails is to wipe it down with a damp cloth as required to wash any salt off it.

The majority of commercial cuttlebone for snails will come ready to use though and shouldn’t require any additional action for you before giving them to your snails.

One very common mistake that we see people making time and time again when cleaning cuttlebone for their snails is that they will try to steep the cuttlebone in large amounts of water.

Due to cuttlebone being mostly calcium and calcium dissolving in water, it is very easy to waste your cuttlebone and have it dissolve when trying to clean it in this way.

This is why we recommend that you simply wipe the cuttlebone down with a damp cloth if you do need to clean it. The small amount of water on the damp cloth shouldn’t be enough to cause you any problems while being enough to get the excess salt off the cuttlebone.

Is Cuttlebone Good For Snails?

Cuttlebone is one of the best calcium sources for pet snails and can be an easy way to help your snail grow and maintain a healthy shell.

Cuttlebone is one of the better calcium sources too with it being cheaper than some of the alternatives on the market right now. Cuttlebone is also a good source of sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, and other mineral salts too.

As we have mentioned earlier in the article though, cuttlebone is far from being a nutritionally complete food source for your pet snails and it should only be used as a part of a healthy balanced diet.

Although many people will just feed their pet snails kitchen scraps and put some cuttlebone in as needed, more and more people are making the switch to a high-quality commercial snail food.

With those snail food products making up the bulk of your snail’s diet and cuttlebone being used to supplement calcium and some other essential minerals, your snail’s diet should not be lacking in any major micronutrient.

Although a diet made up of kitchen scraps and supplemented with cuttlebone is not considered to be nutritionally complete, it does still offer enough for most snail types to live a healthy life.

Conclusion

That brings our article going over using cuttlebone for snails to an end. We feel that cuttlebone is one of the best calcium sources available for pet snails and should be used as a part of a well rounded, healthy diet. The calcium content in the cuttlebone is plenty for your snails to grow a strong, healthy shell and the majority of snails will stop eating the cuttlebone and go to look for other types of food until they need to replenish their calcium stores in the future.