Snails for GSPs 5/19/08
Hey guys,
<Hi Scott, Pufferpunk here.>
I set up a 3 gallon eclipse tank about two months ago to breed snails and it is going great. The snails are breeding like crazy but they are taking longer than I thought to get big enough to feed to my two green spotted puffers.
<The rule of thumb is: snails as big as their eye.>
I have been pulling out about six or eight at a time once a week and dropping them into the tank. They generally do not make it to the bottom but my question is: how many snails should I be feeding each fish to combat their teeth growing?
<The amount you are feeding is fine. Personally, I do not feed snails very often. There are many easier to find hard-shelled foods to feed to your puffers.
See: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/feeding/feeding-your-puffers/ >
I have one GSP that is a little over two inches from tip to tail and another that is about one and a half inches. I feed blood worms most of the time along with black worms and sometimes raw table shrimp, mussel or crab leg occasionally.
<All good foods.>
From the first major snail spawn I have about 100 tiny snails crawling all over some algae wafers that I am waiting to grow big enough and the bigger ones are always laying more egg sacks around.
<Zucchini might be a better/cheaper option for snail food. It’s much easier to pull out a piece of that vegetable with snails crawling all over it, to harvest them.>
I don't want to decimate the population of mature snails to the point where the little ones will take too long to catch up and start laying eggs. Another quick question I have is that I have had insane algae trouble with this tank ever since I set it up. For a few months it was freshwater planted and when I started to add salt coincidentally at the same time black beard algae overtook the whole tank.
<Black “algae” may actually be cyano. Check into eradicating that at the WWM site.>
I dealt with removing it for about a month or more, until it choked out the plants and I had to throw them away. At that time I removed the fluorite substrate, ran diluted bleach through the whole tank, filters and rocks and started over again with crushed coral substrate and I added Bio-Spira and hoped for the best. The tank cycled ok but now there is nothing in the tank besides the crushed coral and rock, so there is nothing to export excess nutrients and with puffers they end up fouling their water in like four days. Is there anything I can do to keep a brackish tank free of algae or at least be able to manage it? <Best way to export excess nutrients in a FW/BW tank is by doing at least 50% water changes weekly. Be sure the puffers are housed properly—30g each adult puffer.>
I have a lot of marine experience with my reef tank but this is my first foray into fresh/brackish water so I might be missing something.
<Although you seem to have snail breeding down pretty well, here’s an article on Basic Snail Breeding: http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/library/feeding/basic-snail-breeding/ ~PP>
Thanks, Scott

Money Cowry Eggs - 6/1/07
Hey guys <Hey Niko>
I have about 5 money cowries in my reef thank and one of them has laid eggs on the under side of my Fluval powerhead exhaust. <Neat!> I saw the cowry there today and decided to pick him off of the powerhead and sure enough there was a pile of yellow white eggs. I quickly put her back up there and she has been getting food and protecting the babies. I am worried about the babies survival. I have a mandarin goby, 2 cb erectus seahorses (doing the breeding dance every morning) and a ribbon eel. I have looked on the web everywhere to find out how to raise them but all I find is never bred in captivity or something to that extent.
<Sounds like you’ve got a great opportunity to fill in some blanks in this area. I’ve heard of cowry eggs appearing in tanks now and then, but unfortunately, never of the young being successfully raised. One problem is that most cowry species hatch into free-swimming larvae called veligers and become food for corals and any number of other organisms in our tanks. Other species skip the free-swimming part. They simply hatch, crawl out, and begin their lives (direct development). Unfortunately, I don’t believe money cowries (Cypraea moneta) are of this variety. Among other issues is what to feed the veligers once they’ve hatched. I can only guess that possibly one of the Phytoplankton products available might be worth trying. Just be careful with those. Too much can lead to an algal bloom. By the way, please do consider keeping records of this and any further events. If you can supplement with photos, that’s even better! Any and all information you can gather and share, helps us all better understand and increase the chances of one day successfully raising these beauties.>
Any suggestions on perhaps using a breeder net and algae clip or something? <See above.>
Thanks
Niko
<You're very welcome. Good luck and please keep in touch! -Lynn>

A Strange Invader?  Nah, Just Normal Reproduction. 3/16/07
Hi there!  
<Hi Debbie!  Mich here.>
You guys were wonderful at addressing my questions a couple weeks ago, so I thought I'd try again.
<Glad to hear.  Welcome back.>
I can't seem to find the answers through previous questions on your website, so here goes:  There is some sort of feather-like deposits stuck on the back of our 3-month old 24g Nano.  One of our Nassarius snails was near the "stuff" - so I don't know if it is somehow related to him?  
<Yep!  Snail eggs.>
I attached the best picture I could get of the stuff.  Any ideas what this is, and what I should do about it?  
<Nothing to do but watch and enjoy!>
Thanks a bunch!  -Debbie
<Welcome a bunch!  -Mich>

Does snail need a mate in order to reproduce?  6/20/06
<<Depends entirely on the species in question.  Please read about the species you keep on WWM.>>
Little white dots in my tank seem to be growing into little snails. My only single snail has lived in my tank for about seven months now. I don't suppose my damsels got her in trouble. I also have couple of hermits, one starfish and a shrimp. 30-gallon tank.
Thank you for your help.
<<Glad to help. Lisa.>>
 

Mystery Marine Snail - 06/09/06 Greetings WWM Crew, <<Morning Crystal>> First, a huge thank you goes out to each one of you for doing what you do! <<We are pleased to assist>> Your site has been a tremendous help for me in setting up my tank. <<Wonderful!>> Almost every question I've had has been answered and clarified, so I now have a deeper (though still 'shallow' in the grand scheme of things) understanding of how things "should" work. <<And your "understanding" will only continue to improve...just keep reading, researching>> So, on to my question.  I've cycled my new 47g tall tank with 45 pounds of live rock, 40 pounds of live sand and decided to start stocking by adding a very basic, small clean-up crew.  I have two scarlet reef hermits and two Nassarius distortus.  Last night, one of the snails popped up and stuck onto the glass while remaining very still.  This morning, when the lights came on, I found him still there, but it had created this trail of yellow palm-frond looking dots. <<I see them>> The entire work measures approx. 2" long and is very intricate.  I have no idea what it is, and I've looked over and over your site for an answer.  Google images yields no answers, and they look nothing like Nassarius eggs. <<Agreed>> So now two questions come to mind, the little guy looks exactly like Nassarius distortus, was sold to me as such, and behaves as such. <<Though very difficult to tell from the picture, but the shell of this snail looks more narrow/elongate than the typical "Nassarius" shell.  Possibly a Cerith species>> But this is odd - so is the answer simply that I do not actually have a Nassarius distortus and that the snail is laying eggs? <<Would be my guess...I have seen snails get mixed/confused during selection/shipment before>> I don't think my snails are happy enough to do this in just three weeks, but who knows. <<Three weeks or three hours, wouldn't make a difference to the snail as long as the proper environmental cues were present>> I've included the best picture of it as my camera could manage. <<Hmm, perhaps time for a new camera <grin> >> Thank you in advance for any answers or help! Crystal <<Thank you for writing so well.  Cheers, EricR>>

A question about spawning from snails  9/19/05
I perused your snail repro faq:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/snailreprofaqs.htm
and am assuming what I've had happen is that the snail is reproducing. I had thought that snails only left trails of egg masses attached to surfaces, and didn't spawn directly in to the water. Guess I learned something new today.
<Perhaps>
This little guy was a hitchhiker on a zoanthid. About five minutes after placing the zoanthid it began to squirt and upon further inspection, this little fella was squirting hundreds of veeeeery tiny eggs into the water (see a few of the eggs on the right in the pic):
http://static.flickr.com/26/43613507_64d22fbcd4.jpg?v=0
<"Photo currently unavailable"..>
He's seemed to have left behind a clear capsule of some sort that's half open. Like an aborted attempt at an egg case. So I wonder if he meant to place the eggs in the capsule or... well, I don't know.
<I think you do>
My question is, do you think that it is indeed a snail squirting eggs?
<Sounds like it, yes>
And also, what species is he? I have not seen him before. From previous posts I'm assuming the hundreds of eggs everywhere in the water are a free bloom
of nutrients and not something to worry about?
<Need to see the pic... for the ID, but not likely a problem... more food for filter feeders. Bob Fenner>
Thanks so much,
BDallas