Infertile Snail Eggs

[ChilDawg]

My roommate mentions that, in his 29g at home, he has a lot of trouble keeping snails alive, and that they are laying infertile batches of eggs. While I realize that many of you would ask why he is complaining, he is, and I need some help in detecting the root cause of the problem.

I am leaning toward low calcium levels, and have been since he posed the problem, but what do you think?

[RTR]

Low pH, low hardness water can be a problem for snails. You can increase the water GH and KH,or you can rubberband a pIece of cuttlebone (as used with caged birds) to a rock for the snails to feed on.

http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/snailsforpuffers.shtml

The above URL includes general instrucyions on breeding the common snails (common pond and ramshorns). For Apple snails, see:

http://www.applesnail.net/

HTH

[ChilDawg]

That does help...I can steal a couple of cuttlebones from my bird-crazy mom when I go home again! I'll forward the articles to him and hopefully he'll have some surviving snails and baby snails soon!

[OrionGirl]

Just a quick double check--make sure there aren't any fish in there eating the eggs. Many fish love snail eggs. My tanks seldom had snails at all if a betta was in there. Gouramie, some loaches and many other fish also eat snails and their eggs, and of course dwarf puffers make short work of young snails.

[ChilDawg]

ZD, Rosy Barbs, Weather Loaches are all egg-eaters, aren't they...hmm...I'll suggest a separate 5-10g for snail progeny.

[OrionGirl]

Yep--seems likely. The killies are the only fish I can raise with snails . Even my newts will eat snail eggs. My tank at work has kuhli loaches and gouramies--I have several big, healthy snails that snuck in on plants, but no babies.