The wandering pond snail is a medium sized native pond snail. It can grow to 3.5 cm but usual size is closer to 2cm. They are excellent scavengers and will eat detritus, fish waste, dead plants, dead fish, leftover fish food, dead fish, algae and blankett weed. The wandering pond snail is the most common and wide spread freshwater mollusc in the UK and is also one of the hardiest. Living in almost every freshwater habitat including ponds, rivers, lakes, ditches, puddles and temporary bodies of water, it can even survive low ph, salinity, pollution and drying out that would kill most other snails. It is the hardiest native species and can easily survive UK winters, but can also be kept in coldwater and tropical aquariums were it makes a great cleaner, and contrary to popular belief in the aquarium hobby-world, they rarely eat live plants, only the brown parts or graze algae from the surface of the leaves. Snails make up an essential part of a pond or aquarium ecosystem and would make an excellent addition to a wildlife pond.
Wandering pond snail (Radix balthica)
The wandering pond snail is one of the hardiest freshwater snails and can survive a wide range of conditions that would kill most other species they can also survive in water with a slight salinity. They won't need any additional food especially if being kept in an outdoor pond but if you want to put extra food in for them they can be fed algae wafers, bloodworm pellets, shrimp pellets, bloodworm or fishfood. Wandering pond snails are hermaphrodites and easy to breed.