hatching baby snails

J

jamiya0727

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Oct 16, 2007
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Hello all. I have lurked here a few times but never posted. I have a mystery snail in a 6-gallon tank with a few fish. Yesterday, the snail crawled up into the hood and I jokingly told my husband that I read that they do that to lay eggs. Well, I guess I wasn't joking because there's a cluth of eggs in there this morning.

We only have the one snail. Can these eggs possibly be fertile? If not, then the rest of my questions are moot.

If so, I would like to keep some, but I probably can't keep them all. I was reading the other thread about the egg clutches, so I gather I can remove some and freeze and dispose. But what do I do with the ones I want to keep? Do I wait for them to hatch and then move them? Or can I put the clutch in another container now?

Once they hatch, what do they need? Does it need to be a filtered tank? Should the water line be low? How many snails in how many gallons?

How long do they take to hatch? Egads! The kids and I are leaving on vacation in a week, but my husband will be home. I wouldn't want to miss them hatching, though!

Anywhere you can point me for snail raising info would be appreciated!

Jamiya
 
with briggs you need a male and female for babies.
you should keep the water down a few inches since the female will lay eggs even if they're not fertile, and you don't want to have her to leave the tank. If you would like babies, I would say buy a bigger tank and get a male from one of the members here.
 
i agree that if your snail is a brigg it requires both genders to lay fertile eggs.

as long as you don't have any snail eating fish in the tank you can use it for raising the snails. i would upgrade to a larger tank, at least a ten gallon, if you plan on keeping more than just a couple of the babies.

if you are running a hob filter, put a sponge or a netting of some sort (pantyhose works) over the intake tube of your filter so that the lil snails don't get sucked up.

best thing to feed all your snails is snail jello. there are a few recipes kicking around AC if you do a search you should find them. they don't require any special foods, other than what you would feed momma snail.

how long ago did you get this snail? there is a possibility that the eggs are fertile if you got the snail from a tank that had other briggs in it, and you got your snail not long ago.

if you could post a photo of either momma snail or the egg clutch, that can help us determine what type of apple snail it is.
 
BettaFishMommy said:
i agree that if your snail is a brigg it requires both genders to lay fertile eggs.

as long as you don't have any snail eating fish in the tank you can use it for raising the snails. i would upgrade to a larger tank, at least a ten gallon, if you plan on keeping more than just a couple of the babies.

if you are running a hob filter, put a sponge or a netting of some sort (pantyhose works) over the intake tube of your filter so that the lil snails don't get sucked up.

best thing to feed all your snails is snail jello. there are a few recipes kicking around AC if you do a search you should find them. they don't require any special foods, other than what you would feed momma snail.

how long ago did you get this snail? there is a possibility that the eggs are fertile if you got the snail from a tank that had other briggs in it, and you got your snail not long ago.

if you could post a photo of either momma snail or the egg clutch, that can help us determine what type of apple snail it is.
Click to expand...
We're lucky you have the time to answer everything, BFM, regardless of whether the questions are moot due to circumstances or not.:iagree:

Filters are extremely important unless you want to cope with their wastes through daily water changes. Baby brigs require softer foods and in smaller quantities only. Veggies must be blanched first so they can chew through easily. Waterline doesn't have to be low anymore as they are too young to utilize the space for spawning yet.

Hatching depends on the temperature and humidity of the environment. I'd say two to five weeks would be the range although assuming the environment is quite warm and humid, then two to three weeks will be the norm. My shortest hatching record was 10 days involving the canas.
 
Lupin said:
We're lucky you have the time to answer everything, BFM, regardless of whether the questions are moot due to circumstances or not.:iagree:

Click to expand...


lol Lup, i'm turning into a snail guru of sorts.........
 
Also, how long have you had the snail? The females can store sperm for months so if you have not had it for longer than 3 months, they could be fertile.
 
We got the snail in December, so it has been about 5 months. I don't know what species she is - the pet stores are remarkably uninformed. Attached are two photos of her - one not too long after we got her, and one more recently when her shell started to have problems. She is growing really, really fast. The last picture is obviously of her eggs. Sorry about the photo quality.

snail1.jpg snail2.jpg snail-eggs.jpg
 
do you know what Ph your tankwater is? more than likely she's got insufficient diet and acidic water which is not good for her shell
 
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