The Puffer Forum

I bought some Ramshorn snails on ebay, and had them in a 5 gallon bucket with about 3 gallons of water.
I did not have any heater or light, but the room it was sitting in stays between 74-80F.
The bucket had a sponge filter and an air pump, and was filled with RODI water. Their diet consist of fish food flakes, spinach, and lettuce, fed every day.
They laid a bunch of eggs on the walls of the bucket, but none of them ever hatched. I bought 25 snails used to feed my GSP, and they were gone in a few months.

Why didn't any of the eggs hatch, what am I missing?
From my searches on here and google, it seems these snails breed like crazy and with very little effort.

Could it be the lack of trace minerals in the rodi water? We all use tap water with frequent changes for snail breeders

^
Yep.

My tapwater is very soft and my snails don't breed as fast as they do for other people. I do supplement with sodium bicarbonate, cuttlebone and oyster shells.

Thanks for the help. I'll try the tap water and some supplements my next go around.
Time for more ebay snails.

Good luck, I think you tried too hard last time. Lots of food and clean water is fine, if you need to supplement for soft water then do so

I would add an algae waffer to that diet.

I used aragonite.

Clean water and a heater helps to. If you can come up to a 10 gallon for snail breeding if you want to produce enough snails for a puffer to have a steady supply.

I'm using a 20 gallon and have 100s of snails.

Don't feed your original generation of snails until you have enough young to reproduce.

Thanks for the help everyone.
Do I need to add any instant cycling products to the bucket?
I don't think I do, but wanted to be sure.

If you will be keen on water changes don't worry too much, on a small water volume large changes are easy and quick to do. You will be rewarded massively if you do large upkeep on your snail breeder

Are you sure the eggs didn't hatch? Ramshorn snails are very, very tiny when they hatch.
Algae wafers, green beans (canned, salt-free work great!) and fish food (flakes).
Please don't give up. It takes a few weeks for the babies to be big enough to be seen. BUT, you might see them sooner if you drop a green bean in the water for them. (I break mine in half lengthwise, so they can get to the soft inner part)

Cinder wrote:Are you sure the eggs didn't hatch? Ramshorn snails are very, very tiny when they hatch.
Algae wafers, green beans (canned, salt-free work great!) and fish food (flakes).
Please don't give up. It takes a few weeks for the babies to be big enough to be seen. BUT, you might see them sooner if you drop a green bean in the water for them. (I break mine in half lengthwise, so they can get to the soft inner part)

Old thread, but...I've tried many different scenerios: BW of 1.005 made them thrive. I also have them producing the most in a tank with crushed coral and aragonite as substrate. Heat is also a key.

Snails (at least Ramshorns and Common Pond Sails) do not need or require a biofilter. I have used large numbers of them to cycle tanks.

RO and/or RODI water are inappropriate for snails. They need/require all the minerals they can get. I can't say whether or not specific gravity of 1.005 is appropriate or optimum, but very soft tap water is very likely insufficient.

Not all plastics are fish and snail safe. If the container is toxic, they will not breed well if at all.

One snail species per container is best.

Snails do best in ph of 7 or higher, hard water, 65 - 82 degrees (f), nitrates under 20ppm.