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Mystery snails changing color

I got a shipment of pink and purple mystery snails a while ago and they are growing great and eating like little vacuums but they are no longer pink & purple. More or less yellowish with a brown swirl, a rather common color scheme. Have any of you had these pinks and seen them change on you? When I got them (all sizes) they were very noticeably pink & purple under the lights but not anymore. Their flesh is still white with orange eyes they just aren't sporting vivid colored shells anymore.

Foods:
tropical color flakes, algae disks, zuccini, spinach leaves, romaine lettuce

Tank:
Fresh Water RO reconstituted with Seachem Equilibrium (doing weekly water changes with it to slowly change the water over) , power filter catridge has crushed sea shells and carbon in it.
 
Here's some pics and what I have found out so far is that they change color because of the thickening of the shell.

A few are still pink & purple:
pinks1.jpg


Now most of them are considered "chestnut" colored due to the base color changing from ivory to yellow.
pinks2.jpg


pinks3.jpg


pinks4.jpg
 
I know that they have some sort of colored feed or digestive grit or something that you can give to turtles to dye their shell - maybe these guys are a similar gimmick? Or it could be a lighting thing like plants maybe, or a camouflage thing like other mollusks. In other words, I have no clue - I'm just spewing out ideas. But your pics are cool. :D
~Joe
 
What the mod of the applesnail.net forum said is you'll never know how they will turn out from between when they are young and magenta colored to when they age and their shells thicken. If the base color stays ivory they will stay magenta but if their base color changes to yellow like mine then they become this chestnut color. I need to get some Caltrate pills (Calcium carbonate) for supplementation. Most people on that forum give them one Caltrate a day to rummage in and keep their shells sturdy and stop the erosion you see on the spires of mine. Mine came with eroded spires but I don't want it to erode any further since I use R/O water, I'm not using my crummy coppery tap water at all.
 
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