# Blue Leo Ramshorn snail color issue :(



## Crash (Jul 19, 2015)

Hey all!

I've had a thriving colony of Blue Leopard Ramshorn snails for...about a year or so now. They were so cute when the original 7 came in! I could clearly see their blue spots on their shells, and their bodies were a purple-brownish color. Fast forward to today, my rams are now more of a dark pinkish color body and the spots are barely visible  I can still see them if I look hard enough though, so the genes for blue leo are definitely still there. They never get terribly big, they only grow maximum to the size of a large pea, and they basically only eat algae and dead plant matter. They must not be lacking of food though, because I have a new round of babies at least every month now. 

The weird thing is, some of my blue leos have hitchhiked into my sister's tank through plant-swapping, and hers are so obviously blue spotted rams! Gorgeous color, they really stick out among her pink rams. Could this be a lighting thing? Food maybe? She has a bunch of platys in her 20 gallon, so she overfeeds a lot, and has mutant-huge pink rams. She also has an LED aquarium light while I have a 6500k daylight bulb.

I've been extremely diligent in making sure no pink rams/hitchhiker rams get into my tank, I vigorously check new plants to be sure there's no egg pods or teeny-tiny ram babies on them before I put them in my tank, and I do check my snail population from time-to-time to make sure I dont spot any hide-aways or odd colors. Any tips from someone who's had rams for a good amount of time? What gives you the best color?

Thanks so much guys!


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## trahana (Dec 28, 2015)

Genetics perhaps. I once had blue ramshorn but they interbred with browns and now I don't have any blues. 

Or growth, are the ones your sister has smaller? I have brown ramshorn and when they are little they are bright brown with spots, but when they grow older they become dark brown and spotless.


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