Snail Propagation

[Harald]

Hey Doc,

I've got the snails breeding like crazy in my tank. I clean my glass, and within days it's covered by egg sacks again. When I set up my tank, my cleanup crew did not consist of ANY cerith snails. Now, I have 150+ snails growing in my tank.

Just read your article, thought you'd like to know.

[rshimek]

Hi,

Could you send me a good image of a couple of them. I would like to try to determine what species they are. I don't think most ceriths do that well, and it would be nice to know of a species that did.

:D

[Harald]

I would like to send you some images, but I don't have a camera that will take a picture of something that small. :(

I'm going to try to buy a digital camera next month, if I do, I'll post the images on my site, and send you a link to the page.

hth

[rshimek]

Hi Harald,

That sounds good. Alternatively you could always just pop a could of the shells in the mail to me. If you want to do that, send me an email and we will discuss it.

:D

[Harald]

I can do that...

What's your email?

[rshimek]

Hi Harald,

Email coming.

:D

[AndreaC]

I gather from the article that my regular turbo snails are broadcast spawning then? If that is the case I am even more proud of my single 'adult' tank bred turbo snail. He/she is now about 1.5cm diameter and a fully paid up member of the herd. Aside from the one adult I have hundreds of 'baby snails' which are more prolific all over the tank at night.
Funny, I never seem to see any in-between sizes. Only the 'babies' which are a few millimetres wide or my 'adult' snail first spotted at about 1cm diam. Are the tiny snails a different type of snail? Some of them do have a distinctly different shape shell, longer and more pointed. But most of them do look like mini turbos even with the beginnings of the shell colourings of the adult snails.
Well, there ya go. Hope that is of some interest.
A

[rshimek]

Originally posted by AndreaC

Hi,

Aside from the one adult I have hundreds of 'baby snails' which are more prolific all over the tank at night.
Funny, I never seem to see any in-between sizes....b]Are the tiny snails a different type of snail?

Yup, the "baby" snails are probably full-grown adults of a species in the genus called Collonista. I have attached an image. The adult size for these animals is 1 - 2 mm in diameter.

Some of them do have a distinctly different shape shell, longer and more pointed.

These are probalby yet another species.

:D