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Mystery Snail Eggs Out of NOWHERE!

9K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  MonsiuerPercy1 
#1 ·
So I was doing a water change just now on my 20g. I'll admit right now that it's one of those cheap kits you get from Wal-Mart with a plastic, flip-open hood. I noticed something different this time, though: a huge conglomeration of orangish-pinkish eggs on the inside of the hood. Who knew I had both a male and a female snail?

I guess I'm fine with the eggs hatching and all that because (brace yourself) my puffers are always hungry. So, is there anything special I need to do to make sure the eggs hatch safely? After they hatch, I plan on sticking in a vacation feeder to harvest the baby snails. How big are mystery snails when they hatch?

Also, I'm just curious here, where did all of those eggs come from? The total volume of eggs looks to be about twice the volume of either of my snails. Do they keep adding to the egg-heap over time and I've just been oblivious?
 
#2 ·
If I were you, raise all the resulting snails. Brigs aren't that bad. You can start selling some of these. Keep the eggs damp so they'll be able to hatch. It's not easy to find the baby snails once they hatch. I had trouble finding the canas until a week later.

You're underestimating the ability of the snails to produce eggs.:tongue:
 
#4 ·
Each clutch can produce between 50-200 baby snails. I remove the clutches after 24 hours. I take a small tupperware and fold a barely damp paper towel in the bottom. then place two dry paper towel on top of that and then the clutch. I then put on the lid tightly (removing the lid to remove any condensation daily) and float it in the tank under the lights. This keeps teh eggs moist but not wet and at the proper temperature. After 10-14 days you will notice the clutch has a very "moldy" appearance. At this time its appropriate to open the clutch and release the baby snails into a breeder trap or small established tank for growout. They are just over pin-head size at birth. They will grow rapidly though. They need a readily available food source for the first few weeks as its not uncommon to have large die-off from them getting exhausted searching for food. In order to ship bridgesii snails, you need to have permits (in the U.S. anyway) and they need to be dime-sized. This means a substantial rise in bio-load and thus wc's to get them to saleable size. Most LFS won't take them as juvies. I would recommend humanly discarding the clutch by freezing or crushing, or only hatching a portion unless you are willing to go through the correct route to rehome them responsibly later on.

And congratulations, there will be MANY more clutches in your future. I get about 10 a week from my 3 breeding snails.


Edit: apple snails are sex specific.
 
#6 ·
#7 ·
I don't really want to devote that much tank space to raising them to sellable size. How long will it take them to grow to about a half centimeter in size? I have no problem with using them as a food source for the dwarf puffers in another tank. Actually, my kribs have figured out how to eat pond snails, so I wouldn't be surprised if they polished off all of the baby mystery snails themselves. I could humanely destroy the clutch like you suggested, but why waste a perfectly good (and perfectly free!) food source?
 
#9 ·
Whenever my snails have laid eggs it also seems that the pile grows over a point of time, so I am guessing that they create more and do not have them all at once, so the hatchings of the eggs should be scattered in their timings.[/i]
 
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