Snail breeding off to a slow start - any advice?

[my name is mike]

I have a 2.5 gal, betta-type tank set up with 10 or so pond snails - i have been feeding them algae waffers (one a week or so) and they have been gobbling them up -- i've had them for 3+ weeks and they have grown in size, but not in numbers. how long does it usually take to get a good stock pile going?

Also, i have a few ghost shrimp in the snail tank for QT before they become puffer food. Could they be eatting snail eggs?

Would adding cuttle bone help boost reproduction?

I keep the temp around 80 (i read high temp would boost metabolism and breeding- any truth to this?)

[kass]

The ghost shrimp are probably eating the eggs. Cuttle bone helps harden their shells, its a good idea to add it but I don't think it would help with reproduction. Your best bet is to rehome to shrimp and be patient.

[my name is mike]

thanks kass ---

i figured that might have been the problem

[MinPins3]

Mike,

I have a ten gallon tank with a heater and filter. I also have a cuttle bone.

I feed them left-over puffer food, plus lettuce and spinach.

They're reproducing rapidly--so much so that I think I may end up with too many.

Good Luck,

Mary Anne

[my name is mike]

MinPins,

do you think my tank might be too small ? i also have a heater, but only a air stone, no proper filtration

for the lettuce and spinach, do you wilt it first in the microwave ?

[MinPins3]

Mike,

I don't know about the size of the tank or proper filtration. Rocker wrote an article about it, so you should be able to find it at this site.

No, I don't wilt the spinach and lettuce--I just throw it in and they love it!

Mary

[littledollies]

I breed aquarium snails and I had 2 to start off with, it took a few months but eventually the little babies started showing up everywhere, then there was no stopping them, my temps were 76, but I would take the others critters out the tank as thats whats eating the eggs.
Good luck

[kass]

My snail tank is a 3.5 gallon and I also have a 2 gallon. I have far more snails than I need. It should be fine.

[kangaroosoup]

The water I add to my snail tank is actually week-old water from my main tank during my weekly maintainence routine. I've found that if you add some mulm to the snail tank, they produce a lot more eggs for some reason. I do to this whenever my snail population gets depleted maybe once every 2 months or so. I also don't do it more often because the mulm makes the snail tank somewhat stinky and dirty faster. Hope this helps.

[OraLacerta]

I found that when I had ghost shrimp in my tank with my snails there were no eggs or babies. I took out the shrimp (puffer food!), covered the intake of my AC HOB filter with some fine netting, and now I have an infestation of snails. The tank size should be fine if it can handle the bioload of a lot of snails. I prefer larger tanks because the greater water volume lets me do less water changes (1 a week with my hundreds of snails).

[Boxermom]

I've also found that having guppies in the snail tank will lead to no snails but lots of empty snail shells.

[my name is mike]

good stuff -- thanks everyone.

i looked carefully last night and i think i have some eggs on the sides of the tank. They look like tiny tapioca in a kind of fat crescent moon shape

now i just need to get rid of the ghost shrimp -- ive only had them in QT for 3+ weeks, so im scared to give them up as food yet, especially since my SG in my puffer tank is really low (i recently planted it, and am waiting a little while for the plants to take hold to get it back up to 1.005) -- ive read that fig 8's are more susceptible to disease when SG is close to fresh water (any truth?), so im reluctant to take the ghost shrimp risk

[Pandora114]

what about having a betta in a snail tank???

[my name is mike]

i heard they tend to eat the eggs, but have no first-hand experience

[Nick]

They eat the eggs, the small snails, and the antenna off the big snails.