A Trip into Snail Breeding - Nerites & Rabbits

[Carapar56]

Yeah they don't hatch. They just lay them everywhere XD I have to agree kilyth my snails always seem to get them into the crevices of my driftwood XD

[KevinVA]

I'm learning that keeping the salinity at the required amount is an annoying task, when you're conducting water changes. ;P

I'm down to about 1.002 density. Honestly, I'm curious if success could be had at lower density, so I'm going to give it a shot. I don't know who established this 1.005-1.010 requirement, but I'm going to up it to 1.003 and see how it goes for a while. No eggs yet, anyway, but I believe that's due to a lack of good algae growth. Hopefully in the next few days I'll start to see more than just diatoms. =/

Going to try another slice of dry seaweed today and see if they take to it.

[Carapar56]

Well you only just got them. It took me about a month and a half to see eggs in my tanks, and both had quite a bit of algae in them to begin with.

[Carapar56]

Hey Kevin, just wondering, how is your baby Rabbit Snail doing?? Also if you can manage to get them to breed more, when you get your shipment in, could I purchase one from you? I'd get one from liveaquaria.com when I order my plants, but they're out of stock and I don't want to wait to get one. c:

[KevinVA]

I can't remember how long it took me to see eggs in my 10gal Betta, but it's possible you're right on. 1.5 months is probably a standard length of time for them to get acquainted with their surroundings, algae growth to take hold and getting comfortable enough to start the reproductive process. We shall see.

My baby rabbit snail is doing wonderfully. Still quite small, but I've noticed that babe and mother pretty much leave each other alone. Seems like even though they take so long to reproduce (and usually only having 1 baby every 5 weeks or so), they still act like other snails toward their young. I've also noticed that the one pond snail that snuck into the tank has also begun reproducing... I saw about 4 of them in there and now I have holes in my Dwarf Lilly leaves. ;/ Pond snails... pains in the butt.

However, if they continue to reproduce, that will give me a food source for my assassin snails (though, they seem to have taken to pellets, anyway).

As for buying a rabbit snail from me? Absolutely. =] I can't promise when they'll be ready, though, or how fast they'll breed.

[Carapar56]

Thanks so much :D and you don't have the assassins with the rabbits do you? If so, isn't that dangerous for the baby??

[KevinVA]

No prob. =] No, my Assassins are in my 75gal. They prevent me from putting any other fun snail in there. lol I don't think I'd even want to test an adult Rabbit Snail in there, as I've read they sometimes team up on larger prey. I'm tempted to test the theory, because I'd really like to have something other than Assassins in that tank. ;/ Though, I really don't want to tempt fate and risk the potential torture for the poor snails. ;/

[fishmommie]

Hey Kev. Just wondering how the rabbit snail breeding is going. Do you have an update for us?

[KevinVA]

Hey Cindy,

Thanks for checking in. =] I've been waiting until this month, actually, to contact the person I bought from before. He said he'd place 5 in a grow-out tank for me, then ship them out when March came around. I'm going to contact him to schedule a time. The weather's been pretty up-and-down lately, so they'd probably end up frozen to death, like last time, if we tried it when it's like this. And unfortunately, Meteorologists are about as worthless as politicians. They never get anything right.

So, hopefully I'll have some good news to report, as I'll finally be getting my rabbits in. =]

As for my Rabbit Snail baby in my 20 Long Betta tank... he/she is doing quite well. Just transferred everyone into the new tank, and the two Rabbits took to exploring right away. Love those guys. =]

On another note, my Zebra snails are doing wonderfully. Well, the four remaining Zebras from the five I originally had. The 5th died a few days after they got here, so I think the shipping did him/her in. The other four are eating and pooping like crazy. I can't clean enough to get the poop out of the tank.

I'm going to invest in a CFL T5HO light fixture for this tank, as the bulb I have isn't doing a great job of stimulating algae growth. What has worked, was introducing a few driftwood sticks from the Potomac River and dosing Phosphates & Flourish Comprehensive on a daily basis. That's been doing a good enough job for algae growth, so far. Though it's not very noticeable, you can tell they're eating healthy, just by the amount of poop they create.

No eggs/babies yet, though.

[fishmommie]

sounds like you're moving forward. will be eager to see how it goes.