The Puffer Forum

So good news. I found baby snails in my ramshorn breeder tank yesterday. Only around 10-15 that I could spot by eye, but I also have baby hider plastic bush things in there so they are probably hiding out also. when I originally bought the ramshorn their shells were sort of white and ghostly but their shell growth is a nice dark brown and they seem to be thriving well. My wife originally spotted the baby snails when she noticed a tiny brown spot that appeared to have antennaes on the glass, sure enough they were randomly spread out.

YEY! I'm so jealous, lol... Congrats on the baby snails tho, I'm excited for your puffer too!

did you add a fish to the tank?

J-P wrote:did you add a fish to the tank?

no i didn't. I looked in there last night though and there like a hundred or more all over the glass and gravel

I am currently working on concocting a 'breeder' tank - home made of course. I have some tubing, and my aerator has an open spot I can hook up to. It'll have to stay near the big tank, of course - but definitely doable. I have a heater, so they'll have bubbles and heat... And I have a spare filter if necessary... Then again, once we move I might just sneak in a 1 gallon tank from wallyworld. How do the lids need to be on these tanks? Do breeder tanks have to be well enclosed? Just wondering if the snails ever try to escape, or if they stay in the water (especially once there are lots!)

no ... they rarely go beyond the water line (pond, ramshorn, apple, and mystery snails). I have never had an aquatic snail escape in to the wilds of the living room.

Ohyouknow wrote:I am currently working on concocting a 'breeder' tank - home made of course. I have some tubing, and my aerator has an open spot I can hook up to. It'll have to stay near the big tank, of course - but definitely doable. I have a heater, so they'll have bubbles and heat... And I have a spare filter if necessary... Then again, once we move I might just sneak in a 1 gallon tank from wallyworld. How do the lids need to be on these tanks? Do breeder tanks have to be well enclosed? Just wondering if the snails ever try to escape, or if they stay in the water (especially once there are lots!)

I have a 20g tank. I have absolutely no lid on there. Just have a heater and the bubbler. I have lots of windows in the room so I just leave the room windows open and I also have lots of those little packs of plant seeds in there so I can transfer FW plants after they grow. The snails for the mean time love crawling all over them eating off the food. They don't seem to eat the live parts.

Oh really, I thought snails liked to eat the vegitation? Well, well then

I'm thinking that my snail breeder is going to simply be about a 10gal rubbermaid tub close to the main tank (behind it, below it) so that the aerator's hose can reach.

J-P wrote:no ... they rarely go beyond the water line (pond, ramshorn, apple, and mystery snails). I have never had an aquatic snail escape in to the wilds of the living room.

If you have apple snails, you need to close every open hole in your tank. When they need to breed, they are insane with getting out of the tank. Luckily they can survive many days on the floor. I've had many miraculous surviving apple snails. They just close "the door" in to their shell. I've also found them marching across my floor. When you find one on the floor, just sniff on them, to make sure they are not dead (rotting snails smells bad), and then throw them back into the tank. The reason is that apple snails go out of the water is that they only will put their eggs above the water.

Yes I noticed a clutch of eggs on the rim of the tank.Still haven't had one go AWOL yet

Thats neet JP they require a male and female right?

I would assume so... haha

I just cleaned the ramshorn tank ... that was one of the worst stenches known to man! AJ, I hope you don't have a sandy bottom (don't take that the wrong way) !

Bcummings8521 wrote:Thats neet JP they require a male and female right?

Yes they do. It's one of the few snail species where the snails are either male or female. So you need both to breed them.

Luckily with apple snails, if you buy a girl much bigger than a nickel, there's a good chance it will already be pregnant, giving you a "free" clutch which will certainly give you more boys and girls than you know what to do with, even if you don't have one of each sex to start.

That clutch hatched today!! Well at least part of it did.