After stumbling on a pet snail in November, seeing them grow and appear to have fun exploring different aspects of their terrarium over the months , at one point their shell started getting discolored. After a lot of research and trial and error perhaps there is a new lead to follow next.

The main culprits to garden snail shell discoloration are low calcium in the diet, or acidity in the water or soil. The snail devours their calcium source reliably and the pH specified on the soil we use for their terrarium is neutral.

But ahh trust but verify. So recently, we've been running some chemical tests . We have this paper strip test that judges the boiled  water to be basically equivalent to the tap water here for mineral ppm content. Both sources are negligible in copper   and chlorine according to the test. Those are also bad for snail shells.

Mixing soil into the water, the "hardness" and "sulfite" levels shoot up, and I learn that "hardness" indicates "calcium". And haha that makes sense 😆since the snail poops out quite a bit of calcium into the soil im sure.

The pH part of the test strip didn't look sensitive enough somehow. But testing with this liquid based reaction test we learn the soil does appear to be perhaps ever so slightly less than neutral, comparing soil water and boiled water below.

And I read online someone said they put egg shell into their snail soil to help with their snails shell discoloration. I was confused by this but I read indeed that calcium bicarbonate according to the gardening part of the internet that's heavy into their soil pH amendments, can raise the pH.

So sprinkling some egg shell and scuttle bone into the soil water, indeed below we see makes this soil water more alkaline ! 

So next step , sprinting this throughout the soil looks like the plan!