The Puffer Forum

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?)

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.

thanks kass ---

i figured that might have been the problem

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

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 ?

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

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

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.

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.

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).

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

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

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

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

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