Snello Recipe for Healthy Snail Shells & Breeding
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Some Snello recipes are too messy and crumble apart when they hit the water. Others aren’t readily accepted by the snails or lack the nutritional profile needed to promote beautiful, healthy shell growth and breeding behavior in your snails.
However, we have an excellent Snello recipe below. You can use it for mystery snails, ramshorn snails, Japanese Trapdoor snails, and other freshwater aquatic species!
Our Secret Snello Recipe
(Makes approximately 4 cups of Snello.)
The sea of Snello:
Great recipe for making snail food in bulk!
- 1 and 1/4 C diced sweet potatoes or sliced carrots, steamed until soft
- 1 1/2 C canned green beans, drained (preferably no salt)
- 3 TB fish food flakes (I use Omega One Goldfish Flakes)
- 3 TB dry ground krill (I use Northfin Fry Starter, 100% whole krill) or other protein sources (frozen or dried bloodworms, eggs, etc.)
- 2 TB Calcium Carbonate powder (with no Vitamin D added; I use this kind)
- 2 Tsp Super Green Boost (or Spirulina/kelp) powder
- 3–4 TB unflavored gelatin powder
- 1/2 C filtered water
- 2 capfuls Seachem Nourish (for iodine; skip if using kelp or Spirulina)
- 2 capfuls Seachem Garlic Guard or 1 clove of fresh garlic, crushed
- 1 cup spinach
- Steam carrots or sweet potatoes until tender, approximately 15–25 min.
- While steaming, using a spoon and a Ziploc bag, crush flakes into a powder. In a small bowl, combine crushed fish flakes, calcium carbonate, and Super Green Boost (or Spirulina or kelp), and stir until mixed.
- Add green beans (water strained), Nourish, Garlic Guard or garlic clove, spinach, and sweet potatoes/carrots to a blender or Nutribullet cup and blend until smooth, adding up to 1/2 C water if the machine is having trouble. Add the dry fish flake mixture and blend again until well dissolved. The resulting mixture should be the consistency of pudding. You want to try to keep it on the thicker side, not watery, as thicker will gel better.
- Transfer the mixture to a small pot and heat on medium heat. Slowly and gradually stir in gelatin until the mixture is steamy but not bubbling.
- Remove from heat and pour mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and spread out flat, about 1/4″ thick.
- Immediately place the cookie sheet in the freezer for 15-20 minutes or until set. To tell if it is set, use the “tap test” to lightly tap around the surface. If you still have liquid on your fingers, it’s not done.
- When set, cut into cubes and separate the cubes so they aren’t touching, as much as possible. (This is the most time-consuming part.)
- Place in the freezer for 3 hours before transferring to a Ziploc bag for storage.
Your snails all go crazy over this Snello!
Feel free to halve the recipe if you don’t want to make as much. You can also modify the recipe depending on which ingredients you have. If you don’t have spinach, try throwing in some lettuce, collard greens, or kale instead.
You can use ground-up pellets as a substitute for fish flakes. Feel free to experiment to find what works best for you (and your snails).
Snello Benefits:
- Iodine is necessary for snails to utilize calcium for shell building. You can use Seachem Nourish of kelp as the primary iodine source.
- The krill adds nutritious protein, which promotes breeding and egg-laying.
- Garlic is a fantastic flavor enhancer and appetite stimulant for picky eaters.
- Super Green Boost is full of minerals and trace elements. Spirulina is also full of trace nutrients, including iodine, which can enhance the color of the snail’s shells!
- The sweetness of sweet potato or carrot makes it taste yummy (to the snail). Some fish will also eat it.
- Cooking the spinach removes the oxalates that may inhibit calcium absorption, making it snail-safe.
Time-Saving Alternatives
Finally, if this sounds like too much work and time for you to spend, you can buy Hikari Crab Cuisine. You can also modify Repashy Soilent Green to be more invertebrate-oriented.
- Use 1 TB of Calcium Carbonate per 2 TB of Soilent Green
- A cube of bloodworms for protein
- And a 1/2 C of baby food or steamed & pureed veggies
Then, add hot water. You can also use Repashy Soilent Green for your fish. So it’s kind of two-in-one.
This recipe takes a while to make and clean up, but homemade Snello is the best option if you need to feed a lot of snails and prefer to cut costs by not buying premade food.
Wrapping It Up
We hope your snails enjoy the Snello recipe. Although labor-intensive, homemade Snello may be more appealing than the commercial formulas. What do you think about our recipe? Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share to make the perfect batch of gel food for snails?
Featured Image Credit to: Madhourse, Shutterstock
