The snail Pomacea flagellata inhabits aquatic systems with high calcium concentration and it is important to food webs; unfortunately, its natural populations are decreasing due to overfishing and habitat destruction. Here we tested the effect of three water calcium concentrations on the growth and hardness of snail shells in triplicate recirculation culture systems for 12 weeks. In each culture, 100 juvenile snails were seeded at constant density and fed with balanced tilapia feed. Thirty snails were randomly collected every 15 days and measured in length and total weight. The size, weight, and shell hardness of the snails for the 500 mg/L calcium treatment were significantly higher than the mean size of the snails in the other treatments (300 mg/L and 243.33 mg/L). The calcium supply in the culture promotes growth and allows the snails to produce healthier and stronger shells, in addition to improving their growth rate, which is important for the management of the species.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.