# Snail egg question



## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

My apple snails lay eggs every friday and (as you can see in my sig) I don't have room for 200 or so snails.
So we remove the eggs, crush em, and flush em
but heres the thing
I really want to keep a few because it would be really cool to have some baby snails.
but the problem is
the egg cluster is rock hard by the time i get to it, so i don't know if leaving a few eggs and killing the rest will work (without killing everything)


so my question is


1 is there a way I can keep a few eggs?
2 is it a good idea to try?


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

I managed to remove my first egg cluster from the tank lid without any damage and after floating it on a plant ring for a couple of weeks about 100+ baby snails hatched. I sold most of them on aquabid (they were light blue, ivory father and blue mother, really kinda cool looking, I still have about 10 of them) the next cluster broke into 2 pieces, when I removed it and some of the the egg cells were damaged. They then rotted and turned green and not a single snail hatched. I tossed out the entire batch after about 6 weeks, when I was reasonably certain nothing would come from it. I don't know it the damage and resulting rot from those eggs cause the rest to go bad but I do suspect it. I the future if I want more snails I leave the entire cluster intact and feed the excess snails to my puffers.


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## fishfreaks (Jan 19, 2005)

i know this is off topic, but if you do keep some eggs and get them to hatch, would you sell us one or two?


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

lol i'd be happy to give away 90 or so if i got 100

but i dont know if it's a good idea with my 10 gal considering it's either the whole cluster or nothing...


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

You could keep the eggs in almost any container till they hatch. Then they wouldn't need to be that big in order to ship. Snails are pretty hearty.


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## Courtney (Jan 18, 2005)

not to be off topic but you do have a male and female snail right cause if not the eggs are no good....

FishFreaks, What kinda snails are you looking for, i just sold 26 baby cana ( apple snails , ) to my LFS today...


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

yes yes they are male and female, considering i see them mate every wednsday.

I don't know if i'm going to leave some eggs or not, it seems like a lot of snail that I wouldn't know what to do with.

What else can I do other than sell ot give em away on the internet?


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

Would your platys not eat them while the snails are still small? Most of my fish would snack on newly hatched applesnails. I had to move the cluster to a plant tank until the snails got large enough to be safe.


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

of course i would have to do that

but it doesn't seem like a good idea anymore


i dont want to end up with a hundred snails and not know what to do with em


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## Chazwick (Aug 24, 2005)

Courtney said:


> not to be off topic but you do have a male and female snail right cause if not the eggs are no good....
> 
> FishFreaks, What kinda snails are you looking for, i just sold 26 baby cana ( apple snails , ) to my LFS today...


ERMMMMM, Aren't snails hetrosexual (or whatever), they are both male AND female? That's what conclusion i came to... lol


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

yes they are

but not apple snails
thats what makes them unique


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Chazwick said:


> ERMMMMM, Aren't snails hetrosexual (or whatever), they are both male AND female? That's what conclusion i came to... lol


I think the term you are looking for is asexual, meaning that there is no male or female. There is only one sex.


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

yea thats what he meant
but they arent asexual they are sexual

you need a male and a female otherwise it wont work


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## bananas (Sep 10, 2005)

> Snails are pretty hearty.


what does that mean?
how would they be shipped?


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## azn1stknightsou (Aug 25, 2005)

Heck if you get some, ill take some off your hands. My red eared would love them.


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

Since they are air breathing, they can stay out of water for several days. When I shipped mine, I wrapped damp paper towels around them and put them into egg containers, empty butter dishes etc will work as well, just put some air holes in the lid, then box them up and ship them.


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