problems breeding snails

[sgtmyers88]

BTW the link in that article linking to RTR's article is broken.

[celbrise]

thanks for the link. I used to use old fish food to feed them but they didn't seem very interested. They actually devoured the lettuce leaf i put in yesterday it is mostly gone I will be changing it out later tonight and i think they already started laying eggs. i see what looks like 2 egg clusters but can't confirm yet.

[littlec]

I too have not had very good luck breeding snails. I set up a 10 gallon tank with sand subtrate, 2 nano filters, a heater (78 degrees) a cave, and two fake plants. I put about 50 pond snails in the tank that I had collected from my 30 gallon community tank. they seemed fine at first. I made them snail jello (1 jar of green bean baby food, 1 tsp of fish food, 1 Calcium supplements, 1 multivitamin, and 1 packet of unflavored gelatin). I fed them a small square every couple days. They didn't take to it right away but slowly started eating it. I did 50% water changes once a week. After about 2 weeks, I noticed about 6 empty snail shells on the bottom. I siphoned them out and kept my eye on them for another week. More were dying. I started my research and saw that copper could kill them. I looked at the supplements and saw they both had copper in them. I threw out the snail jello and started feeding them 1 algae wafer a week. I had a lot of eggs and babies at this point but the adults started dying more. I have checked my water parameters. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, 40 nitrate, 7.8 ph. I added a cuttlebone about a week ago. I have been doing more research and have come to the conclusion that I may be starving them. So I've added a spinach leaf and about 10 mini algae wafers. The adults and adolescents are eating. The babies have disappeared. My population is down to 30 snails. Do you think i'm right about the starving part? Or could it be something else? There are only like 2 egg sacks now.

Thanks