A Trip into Snail Breeding - Nerites & Rabbits

[fishmommie]

loving this thread.
And Kevin - don't forget. I'm first in line for your rabbits

[KevinVA]

I agree, Sandz. Had it not been for other fish keepers on this forum, I never would have become so enthralled with them. I love my little invertebrates and look forward to getting this show on the road!

You got it, Cindy! ;]

[AllenIsbell]

Holy crap! I have never heard of Rabbit Snails until now. They are awesome looking!

I want!!!

[KevinVA]

Love 'em, man. The one I have is so cool/fun to watch. =]

[KevinVA]

Great news tonight!

After only about a week, and only one dosing of 2ppm ammonia, these are my params for both tanks:

Amm = 0ppm
Trites = 5ppm
Trates = 20ppm

I'll be dosing about .5-1ppm ammonia tonight and hopefully I'll have a cycled tank within the next week. Can't believe how fast these are going. =]

[Sandz]

Sounds good, good example of how smaller tanks can grow or change perams so much faster than big ones.

[KevinVA]

Just a quick update. I added a small amount of Ammonia last night (around 1am). I was going to wait an hour and then check the ppm to see if I had .5-1ppm in there to cover the day. Well, I fell asleep and woke up at 5:30am.

That being the case, I decided to leave it as is and revisit later in the morning/afternoon. At around 11am I checked the params and I received the same readings as I did at 12:45am. Apparently my bacteria ate up the amount of ammonia I added in about half a day (maybe less). So, I decided to dose again this morning (11:30am). This time I didn't fall asleep, so I was able to make sure I had dosed the correct amount - 1ppm.

Now I'm just waiting until tomorrow to see how things are going. I was just surprised to see how fast the ammonia was eaten - less than 12hrs for I presume .5ppm.

Hope to have good news tomorrow morning. 1ppm per day for about a week should do. I expect the nitrites to begin falling in the next few days.

[Northerly]

Good to hear! Would love to read about the process and what it takes to make a tank brackish. Isn't it a salinity thing? Not quite saltwater but not fresh either?

[KevinVA]

Yep, that's exactly what it is. You dissolve salt in removed tank water, add it to the tank, then measure the salt level/gravity with a hydrometer. For Nerites, the breeding level is about 1.005 to 1.010 specific density. I haven't gone through this yet. I was going to raise the salinity after having cycled the tank. Figured that was probably a safer bet.

[Northerly]

Oh I gotcha, interesting. Seems about as straightforward as using a pH buffer. In theory at least lol.