Breeding Mystery Snails

[Sombat]

Updated photos of baby mystery snails one week later. 

[Sombat]

Another two weeks of growth. Seems the number has fallen but those that have survived are getting big. I’m trying some blanched cucumber this time. I had been feeding algae discs before. 

[Guppysnail]

My baby snails favorite is blanched green beans. I’m so happy you are enjoying your hard won success 😁

[Sombat]

I can’t believe how fortunate am being able to witness another batch of baby snails and this time watching them immerse from the clutch. A video is too big to post so here is a snapshot. I have so many snails now. I have transferred some to four other tanks of mine and one to my wife’s tank at her work. 

[Flumpweesel]

wow - congrats. I just read this from the start and you really had quite a journey with this.  So glad it worked out in the end 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

This is awesome! Congrats! I’m raising some babies now too! Gold ones.

[snaillover]

I want to get some baby mystery snails. I have 2 of the yellow, 2 blue, 2 jade and 2 ivory. They are in a 10 gallon tank. I haven't had any clutches. I don't know if any of them are male or female. I haven't been able to tell. I just put an ivory and a yellow in a breeder box together but I don't know the right way to mate them. My tank is on about 76 Fahrenheit. 

[Guppysnail]

@snailloverYour snails may not be old enough. Once they are old enough and eating plentiful you will see the boys crawling on top of other snails for an extended time. That is the easiest way to sex. There is no guarantee the bottom snail is a girl though. The boys do not differentiate whether girl or boy they are mating. My girls often become larger than the boys quickly. 
There are photos @Chick-In-Of-TheSea has to be able to pick them up and look but it’s hard. Placing them in breeder boxes seldom works. I allow mine to just mate as they see fit. Once they start it’s hard to get them to stop.

Best of luck. There are some great snail breeders here to help with any questions. 
 

I hope you share your progress and photos in s journal. The snail lover’s community here is very lively and we love photos. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 4/25/2023 at 7:01 PM, snaillover said:

I want to get some baby mystery snails. I have 2 of the yellow, 2 blue, 2 jade and 2 ivory. They are in a 10 gallon tank. I haven't had any clutches. I don't know if any of them are male or female. I haven't been able to tell. I just put an ivory and a yellow in a breeder box together but I don't know the right way to mate them. My tank is on about 76 Fahrenheit. 

As far as what colors you’ll get from offspring, @Cinnebuns has some good info on that. I think @Lennie has the picture of how to tell male or female.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Sombat]

Wow, it’s been nearly two years since I started this post. Nice to seeing it’s still alive. The snails have grown up. Sadly though no new babies have survived. I get lots of clutches but have not seen any babies. 

[Guppysnail]

Nice to see you @Sombat!

 

[snaillover]

I have a chart of the probability of the colors. I've had the snails about 4-5 months. I have noticed that the 2 I got first, one is bigger than the other. 

[Cinnebuns]

On 4/25/2023 at 6:01 PM, snaillover said:

I want to get some baby mystery snails. I have 2 of the yellow, 2 blue, 2 jade and 2 ivory. They are in a 10 gallon tank. I haven't had any clutches. I don't know if any of them are male or female. I haven't been able to tell. I just put an ivory and a yellow in a breeder box together but I don't know the right way to mate them. My tank is on about 76 Fahrenheit. 

First of all, that is a very large bioload for a 10 gallon. Mystery snails have a surprisingly large bioload for a snail. Im not saying you can't keep that or that you aren't already aware of this. I don't know your knowledge level and just want to make sure you are aware of that so you aren't surprised by it. 

Several facts can possibly go into why you may not be seeing clutches but putting 2 in a breeder box will not help. Males will mate with any snails (females, other males, even other species) very easily and willingly. I doubt that getting them to actually mate is your issue. Putting them in a breeder box will only mean the female is somewhere she cannot lay eggs. 

Mystery snails lay their eggs above the water line. You need to have the water line down a surpringly low amount to get them to actually lay their eggs. This can be harder in a 10 gallon tank since it is not as deep so I'm assuming you don't have it low enough. When a female decides she wants to lay a clutch, she first goes on a scouting mission to fine a spot to lay. She needs a place out of the water yet humid enough that the eggs will not dry out. You will see her climb up out of the water several times sometimes before finding the spot that she chooses. They can be picky. I once had a female who laid her clutches in the same spot every week until I got a new lid. The lid had an opening right above her spot and therefore it was no longer as humid there. She never laid there again. Make sure you have a low water line and a lid to trap humidity in. 

There are many other possible reasons you may not be finding clutches but I'm going to start there as it seems the most likely. 

In terms of possible colors, that's hard to say with your combo. Females can lay a clutch containing sperm from multiple males. Since you have so many different colors, it's really impossible to guess who's mated with who. My best guess is that you will get multiple colors in the same clutch. 

Incase you are curious, this is a chart of their genetics. Each allele is a different trait. One for dark foot or light foot, strips or solid, and the base shell color. You can see how the different colors relate. 

[snaillover]

I have a lid with a small opening to drop food in and an opening where the filter is. The water is down about 2.5 inches from the rim of the tank. I clean the tank about once every 5 weeks or so and I clean the filter once a week. I feed the snails a balanced diet of calcium chips, snail cookies from crayfish empire,algae wafers and snail mix #4 from aquatic arts. I just got a gallon of spirullina this week so I'm going to try to make snello with that, green beans, the powder calcium and tropical flakes. I also intend to blanch cucumber and zucchini. I put in about 5 mL of liquid calcium in every week and a half or so. I have plants in the tank to filter out some of the nitrates and such. I have the heater set to about 76. I have seen them mount each other a couple times this week but it's never longer than a couple of minutes. Just this morning, a blue was mounted on an ivory snail. Does anyone have any tips on another way to help better take care of them so they are in good health to even lay clutches? BTW, I took the 2 out of the breeder box. I started to have anxiety about them not having enough room. They weren't in the box a half of a day. Lol 

[snaillover]

As far as being able to tell the genders, I have only seen one way to tell and thats to look behind their heads in the shell to see if there is a hole on my left of the snail. I have not had any luck from that suggestion being that they need to be angled perfectly. There's got to be a better way. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 4/26/2023 at 7:08 AM, snaillover said:

There's got to be a better way

The only other way is to observe mating behavior. The snail on top would be the male.

[snaillover]

My friend who got me into tank/snail life came over to see how my tank is doing. I talked to her about them mating and all that. Not even an hour later, I just caught 2 mounted on my biggest snail just going at it. I video called my friend to show her and she said they are definitely mating. Now if the clutch will be viable is the question. 

[snaillover]