Mystery snail burrowing and staying put?

Question
Hi Karen,
I read your response to Jaquie and hope you can help with mine. I recently bought 3 black Mystery snails and added them to my 10 gallon tank. I have 10 guppies, 2 Bleeding Heart tetras and 1 pleco in there.
After the first day I noticed that one of my snails found a nice spot inside a rock that is in the tank and burrowed down into the gravel creating a gravel wall around it. It hasn't moved in 3 days now. The third day another one burrowed down into the gravel right under my filter tube. This protects it from above but not from the sides.
I can't find anything on the Net to say whether they may be getting ready to have offspring or if they just do this to rest. I have only seen the pleco attach to one of them but I bumped him off with a grabber tool and I haven't seen him bother them since. Nothing else bothers them.
Any ideas? Your help is very appreciated.
- Ian

Answer
Hi Ian,
It's common for snails to go into deep resting periods of no activity, even if its for days. I'm not entirely sure what determines this but it happens a lot. Oftentimes snails will be lazy nearly 98% of the time unless they smell food. I bet if you put a small slice of zucchini or romain letruce your snails would probably stir around and start looking for it.

Just make sure you keep up with those vital water changwes. Ten guppies, 2 bleeding hearts and pleco and two snails is quite a bioload for a 10-gallon. Try to do large water changes as often as you can to keep up with the waste production.

Best of luck with the fish and snails!!
Karen~