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Marisa (Marisa sp.) Lives in South America, the Orinoco River basin. This mollusc was vvezёn in Europe in the first decade of this century and cultivated until the thirties. Then Marisa culture disappeared, and in 1995 the interest in this representative Ampullariidae family appeared again.
When I got a couple of adult marises, they immediately began laying eggs in my aquarium. Although I was warned that they are not so easily bred, I decided that it would not be difficult to multiply this large and beautiful snail. A few months passed, and my optimism left no trace. After repeated attempts, I realized that it would not be easy to get offspring from the marises. Obviously, it was necessary to observe and establish the causes of failure.
In my aquariums, marises feed on algae fouling and bacterial film on the water surface. Creeping over the glass, the snail leaves no visible traces of eaten fouling, like a coil or an ampularia. Having fixed the majority of the legs on the glass, it turns its mouth to the surface and pulls on itself a film with everything edible on it and under it. She willingly eats and dry food.
Probably, when there is not enough fouling, marises are also taken for higher plants. In the aquarium of my friend, they eat the marshwort and do not refuse even from the cabbage leaf. But my plants do not like marisam, they do not eat them, but cut the leaves at the very base. What is it? Senseless actions or harvesting foliage as food for juveniles? The life style of the Mariz in the Orinoco river basin is still poorly understood: where does it live - on the rapids or in the creeks? If in the backwaters, then my assumption can be true. But we still have to watch.
Now about reproduction. Pairing, snails are in close contact from 5 to 10 hours. Female individuals have a dark chocolate color of the legs, male - light-flesh, with barely noticeable brownish spots. Brickwork is usually placed under the sheet; It does not matter where this sheet is located - at the surface or at a depth. My marises used for this both pistia and echidorus.
Incubation period 10 - 12 days at 26 degrees C. The adult snails, I was separated from the egg.
Round whitish eggs about 1 mm in diameter are placed in mucus, each on a thin umbilical cord. Developing, they increase in 2 - 3 times, move apart and gradually become oval.
On the 5th - 7th day, a snail is clearly visible inside the egg. There she gradually eats a milky-white shell. After 4 - 5 days, being in a completely transparent bowl, she gnaws it and goes outside. Now small snails begin to feed on the mucus surrounding the eggs, and a few more days spill over. Then they wander around the aquarium, where they do not have any dangerous enemy.
And yet very few Maris survive. Why? I can not say this yet. Having grown to the size of a pea snail is already stable, we can assume that she will live. But will it?
Although the maris breathes easy, like an ampularia, it is much more sensitive to the quality of water. My friend stopped in a green and brightly lit aquarium pump, and two broods of seemingly strong "peas" per day perished.
Needless to say, the mariza has not yet revealed all its secrets. No wonder about her not a word of any of our or foreign books on aquarium, published over the last 50 years.


A.Sosimov St.Petersburg Aquarium № 3, 1996.