Housing Your Snail
You can house your snail/s in a variety of containers or tanks; however consideration should be taken when choosing your snail’s home. Will the tank be big enough for the snail once it has grown to full size? Is there enough ventilation? (if not you can always drill additional ventilation holes into the lid and sides of plastic tanks/containers) does the tank allow in sufficient light, snails need light, so any tank or container must have clear or at least opaque sides.
The size of your tank is very important; to help you calculate the size of tank you need, please click on the snail link below to take you to petsnails.co.uk snail tank size calculator.
Some types of housing include the following:
Purpose built vivarium / turanium, these are readily available in pet shops, and vary in size from small/mini ones (not really suitable for a snail) to larger jumbo sizes, these can be a little expensive, but they are lightweight, easy to clean and have ready made ventilation holes
Aquariums have advantages and disadvantages, they are strong and don’t scratch easily, however they are heavy which makes it quite difficult when cleaning them out, compared to plastic tanks they are more expensive, but can be found quite cheaply second hand in local free ad papers, my personal preference is the aquarium, with a little planning they can be made to look very nice and don’t look out of place in the home
Plastic storage boxes are probably the cheapest and easiest to come by of all the possible housing options, these can be obtained from almost all supermarkets DIY stores, and online from many retailers. They are easy to clean, most are stackable, and simple to convert to the ideal snail home, ventilation holes can easily be either drilled or punctured into the plastic; they come in many different sizes and styles and are cheap compared to the other housing methods.
The lids are normally very secure and snap into place making them escape proof, for a cheap start into keeping you GALS these would make an ideal choice, ensure that they sides are clear or opaque to allow light into them.
Personally though I feel that the use of these limits where in the home you keep your pet, I not sure about anyone else but I like my snails to be a talking point for visitors, and prefer them to be on display in my family living room, and just don’t fancy a pile of plastic storage boxes in the corner, however for the children’s bedroom or elsewhere in the house these have proven an excellent alternative to the tank.