# Hatching snail eggs



## Danja

I have two mystery snails in my aquarium. One of them laid eggs on the glass wall a few days ago and is currently laying more on the roof of the aquarium (no idea how it got up there!). I wouldn't mind a few more snails and I have some friends who want one so I'd like to hatch a few of them.

Last summer I had another snail who unfortunately died in an ammonia spike when my filter broke. It was the only snail in the tank but laid eggs on the wall. As far as I could tell, only a few of them hatched and the hatchlings were nowhere to be found; I suspect my frogs.

I currently have the two snails, a pleco, an upside down catfish, and four ADFs. Is this an environment in which I can expect hatchlings to survive? If not, what should I do? Is there anything I need to do to the eggs to ensure they hatch? They seem really dry. Thanks for any help,

Dan


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## Revolution1221

i dont know about doing anything to help them hatch but i just know you dont want to drown the eggs. your pleco may eat babies if they are small im not sure tho.


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## emc7

I wouldn't expect them to survive, but snails can surprise you. Do little snails live in your tank? Do you have another container? Maybe a bucket you could put in the sunlight to grow algae? Could you move the egg-encrusted lid until they hatch and fall in the water. Mine only bred once and I didn't do anything to the eggs, just had little snails without doing anything.


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## AvocadoPuffDude

Plecostomus will eat your snail eggs if he can reach them. Perhaps the reason some were deposited on the roof of the tank was to avoid the pleco, although that's giving the snail a bit more credit for intelligence than I'm comfortable doing.
I had 4 varieties of snails when I got my bristlenose pleco baby, less than an inch long. Within 6 month, no more baby snails were hatching, and eventually my snail population dropped to the few that stay in the betta enclosure, and those that made it to the canister filter pump, where they live and lay eggs and maintain their population. (I have clown loaches and pufferfish, both notoriously ravenous of snails.)
Good luck, but unless the snail can get to - and lay eggs - somewhere the pleco can't get at them, I doubt they will make it. I've never seen a pleco eat a baby snail, just the eggs.
Last, you don't have to "do" anything to hatch a snail egg except keep them safe. They're pretty tough critters, so no mucking around with the water parameters or anything, they should be fine. Perhaps if you see snail eggs you could devise something to put around them until they hatch - something that allows water flow but prevents the pleco from eating them....?????


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## Danja

Thanks for all the info! I do have another container; it's a small frog-o-sphere (don't get mad; they were a gift!) that the frogs originally came in. Can I just pinch the two egg sacks off of the walls and put them on a dry rock above water level in the frog-o-sphere? 

The snail laid both sacks high above the water. Probably beyond the pleco's jumping range really. Maybe it really is that smart.


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## emc7

those snails always lay above the water line. It probably is an adaption to avoid plecos. If you can detach the eggs without smashing them, moving them should work.


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## AvocadoPuffDude

Leaving the snail eggs where they are is always the best bet for them hatching, but if you must move them, I'd use a single-edge razor blade (such as the type I use to scrape algae off my GLASS aquarium) to remove them without doing too much damage.
Good luck!!!


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## Corwin

you will never be able to pinch them off the lid they are very fragile. Follow Avocado's advice if you really feel the need to move them, other wise just leave them and wait for the babies to hatch then move the babies.

Snails are probably the easiest thing to breed in the hobby, mainly because you really dont need to do anything specialy in order to keep the eggs safe and the babies alive.

My advice would be to simply leave the eggs where they are and move the babies afterwords.


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## AvocadoPuffDude

Just to clear things up: I don't think snails are smart enough to know to lay their eggs above the water line to avoid a plecostomus or other predator. My snails always laid their eggs well under water, never above water that I knew of, until I got my plecostomus. Then I noticed the eggs laid underwater would disappear after a day or so. 
What is more likely, is that snails can lay their eggs underwater, or out of water but near enough to keep moist, and do so all the time. The introduction of a plecostomus favors the survival of the eggs out of water, and so then you get snails that survive by this strategy. It's survival of the fittest, Darwin's theory in motion.
Remember, they're SNAILS. Not exactly rocket surgeons, so be careful giving them credit for too much intelligence. Like, duh.


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## PostShawn

Mine don't lay above the water line. Most of them are laid right below to about 3 inches below the water line. I have a bunch of snails in my fry tank with about 40-50 molly fry. I figured I kept pulling them out of my normal adult tropical 20g tank so may as well let the snails live in the 14g fry tank I have going. So I put a few in and a few more a couple days alter and did this for about a couple weeks. My adult tank still has some that I see every now and then (no plecos in that tank) so I just take them out and put them in the fry tank when I see them. In the fry tank I have floating fake plants. The snails are laying eggs now on the floating plats, on the glass, etc. All over the place. I must have 100 snails in there now. I can see many babies not more then the size of a pen tip. Then I have some that are larger then a pea. I don't mind since it's just my fry tank. Kind of interesting to see all this happen. I figure either when I get rid of the fry and maybe tare down the tank or get too many snails I will give them to my father-in-law to put in his outdoor pond. 

So I think snails aren't so much cleaver or smart but just have natural instincts. I don't have anything in the fry tank that is a threat and they still lay the eggs up near the top or on the floating plants. I don't have a cover on that tank so I don't know if they would have gotten that high up. 

By the way, anyone in Los Angeles want free snails? LOL


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## Corwin

Dont be so quick to claim snails are stupid simply because they arent sentient. That said laying eggs above the waterline is a survival method used by many aquatic animals and its something that these animals have developed over time. Apple snails lay their eggs above the waterline to avoid predators. Not all snails do this, nerites, and pond snails will lay them on any flat surface, in their cases their survival tactic is to lay huge amounts of eggs in various places, so that even though predators may find some they wont find them all. Other snails like Malasian Trumpets dont lay eggs at all and are in fact live bearers.

Post shawn hit it right on, its not really intelligence in the form of sentience, or being clever, its simply survival instincts honed over thousands of years of trial and error.


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## Egrance

My Mystery Snail recently laid eggs and accidently destroyed them  i was wondering how long it would take before they laid eggs again?


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## lohachata

apple snails and mystery snails are related species...they lay their eggs above the water line..
when i was breeding apple snails this is what i did..
as APD said.scrape the eggs off with a razor blade...have a small tank set up...preferably with a sponge filter...cut a piece of styrofoam into a 5 or 6 inch square and float it in the tank..place the egg clusters on the foam and wait for the eggs to hatch..
feed the baby snails regular fish food and some lettuce..also get a cuttle bone they is used for birds and put it in the tank..snails need a lot of calcium for their shells...


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## TheOldSalt

I used to hatch them all the time. The key to success is keeping the eggs out of the water, but still keep them humid. That's as easy as making sure the tank has a tight fitting lid. The way I did it was to use an almost empty 10 gallon tank with maybe 1/3 inch of water in it. The egg clusters ( _don't try to separate the eggs_ ) were placed on a tiny little rock and the tank tightly covered with a lid. The eggs eventually hatched, and the baby snails ( SO cute! ) would just crawl off the rock and into the water.


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## egoreise

I have my egg clutches floating in a tupperwear container, floating in one of my tanks. There's a folded paper towel and some water, so it's moist, but the eggs sit on the paper towel rather than in the water. It's just temporary. I like TOS' idea, and might have to do that with one of my spare tanks.


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## humdedum

TOS, you've just inspired me to go and buy some mystery snails of my own! I wouldn't even need those calcium supplements because my water is so loaded up with minerals already.


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