# Help! Strange mass in my tank!



## g_xii (Jul 7, 2007)

Long time lurker, first time poster here ... I need some help! 

I looked in my tank last night and found some kind of growth on the underside of the acrylic top of the tank. It looks like some kind of egg mass, but I believe it's too large of a mass to come from anything that is at present living (or has ever lived)) in the tank! The size of this mass is almost 2.5" long, and about 3/4" at the widest, and hangs down towards the water about 3/4 inches. I can see round shapes in it, fairly tiny. You can see them in the photo. The color in the photo is fairly accurate - somewhere between pale human flesh color and pink. The little bit of debris you see next to the mass is not from the mass -- little eggs are NOT breaking off. This is one solid slimy mass, all one piece. 

In the tank are the following: 

(2) male Gold Rams (approx 2" in length) 
(10) neons ( < 1") 
(1) mystery snail (1.5") 
(3) blue long fin danio's (1") 
(1) queen arabesque pleco (sp? 2.5") 
(1) corycat (3/4") 
(1) arrowana (some kind of twig shaped catfish, 3.5", but only about 1/2" wide at widest point) 

Tank is 29 gallon (tall "bubble front" tank) 
Live plants 
Whisper internal 40 gallon filter 
(1) airstone 
NITRITE = 0.00 ppm 
NITRATE = 0.0 ppm 
AMMONIA = 0.00 ppm 
pH = 6.8 
TEMP = 78 degrees F 

That's all that is in this tank. All fish are doing fine, water quality is good, We just cleaned the underside where this egg-mass or whatever is last Sunday, so it has been placed there within the last 5 days. We are SURE it was not there on Sunday. 

Any help is appreciated. 

--Henry


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## Ice Prince (Jun 15, 2007)

To me it looks like snail eggs. If you google image mystery snail eggs they look very similar.


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2007)

deff. snail eggs. in your list of fish in the tank, the "arowana" is prolly a farlowella (sp?) also know as a whip tail cat. that is my guess because you described it as a cat.


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2007)

thanks becky!


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## Guest (Jul 7, 2007)

Yeah definitely not an arowana. 

this is an arowana: 










And yes, those are certainly snail eggs.


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## g_xii (Jul 7, 2007)

*Thank you!*

Wow -- thanks for all the quick responses!

Snails, from what I understand, can breed on their own without a mate. And, you are all right -- after looking at the pics posted (and on 2 other message boards where I posted the same thing) everyone seems to agree: mystery snail eggs.

It is such a HUGE amount of eggs, though... There WERE two mystery snails in this tank until about a month ago, when one of them decided to commit suicide and climb out and smash on the tiles. Sad.... but we have always had lots of mystery snails in our tanks, and I've NEVER seen an egg-mass like this before. I usually see these tiny 1/4" blobs of clear snot-like substance with little white dots in it... I always thought these were the mystery snail eggs as that's all I ever saw, and after a few months, they were everywhere.

As for this tank, I originally posted the wrong readings -- all water levels are ZERO in this tank. I don't think it's overstocked. All the fish are very small, most of the neons are not even 3/4 inch.

And, that whip-tail cat (Farlowella) is what I have. Tiny thing, but interesting to watch!

--Henry


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## Apotheosis (Jul 2, 2007)

Snails multiply like rabbits. :mrgreen:


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## MaelStrom (Jun 24, 2007)

Apotheosis said:


> Snails multiply like rabbits. :mrgreen:


On steroids


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## g_xii (Jul 7, 2007)

Baby_Baby said:


> See that first picture I posted with the snail eggs? Thats an accumulation over ONE WEEK!!!
> Pretty crazy, huh?


Now, you HAVE to give more info than THAT! ONE WEEK? How many tanks is it from? How many snails produced that pile of eggs?

I was frankly shocked that this little mystery snail could produce this many eggs! Seriously -- the egg-mass is at least as big as the snails body! 

In my other larger tank, I've always had an abundance of snails, but I went on a killing spree and got rid of most, and have kept the water level higher -- I guess that helped in the long run!

--Henry


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Baby_baby are you a major snail breeder on purpose, or is all that just incidental production? Do you hatch out all those eggs? Put them on AB? Trade them? Or just toss them?


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