I have a MTS. Why doesn't it reproduce?

I like my MTS a lot. I rarely see any during the day but if i catch them at night with a flashlight I have quite a large crew now. I got probably 8-10 from my LFS. Ive heard they eat the eggs of pond snails and the like, Im almost inclined to believe it because pond snails reproduce very slowly in my tank with MTS, and considerably faster in my other tank.
Just go get some more, I dont think Ive seen a store that didnt have some, and give it a bit of time.
 
I followed your link and found this bit:

"One of the most remarkable features of these snails is their parthogenetic reproduction: unfertilised females are able to reproduce. So only one snail is needed to have more in short time."

That's exactly what I thought I had read somewhere else...and the point of my post. Now I know I'm not crazy and I'm again wondering why I would only have one adult snail in my tank.

Oh well, getting a few more certainly won't hurt anything. (Famous last words?)

It's funny, really, that I had this snail for so long without knowing it, because just now I found him (oops, her) again, out of the gravel (the room had been dark) without much looking at all.
 
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You could always just say your feeding loaches, if you want a quick simple explaination i suppose. They never really asked much of it at my lfs, i usually got them along with some ghost shrimp so they might have just assumed or they knew a thing or 2 about MTS.
 
RTR said:
MTS are not hermaphroditic, they are parthenogenic females. Males have not been found.

Go to: http://www.applesnail.net/

Click on "Various" from the left-hand menu,

Then scroll down to "Conical shell" and click on "Thiaridae"

You can also Google them for more info, but the Apple snail site is correct there.
Click to expand...

RTR, not going to disagree with you here... upon further research it apears they can be parthenogenic as well as sexual. However, from what I could gather, Males have been found.

Reproduction and Fecundity: Red-rimmed melania (Melanoides tuberculata) may reproduce both sexually and by parthenogenesis (Morrison, 1954; Berry and Haji Kadri, 1974; Liv****s et al., 1984).

Here's a link that's chocked full of goodies on the subject... just click on the Full Text Article link at the bottom of the Abstract.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2004.00791.x
 
Be patient. I only saw one MTS snail for a long time...now if I catch my tank at the right time it looks like someone shook sesame seeds in it...so many MTS babies. I'm trusting that my loaches will keep this in check.
 
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