Nerite lifespan?

[Katherine]

How long have your nerites lived? The various care guides don't seem to agree, though tend toward 1-2 years. I did find one that said up to 3 years. I have had my guy for 2.5 years now so I'm wondering if we're pushing the upper limit and likely to lose him soon.

[CT_]

I've read stuff like 5-7 years in the wild.  

[Cinnebuns]

On 3/24/2022 at 11:35 PM, CT_ said:

I've read stuff like 5-7 years in the wild.  

I have literally no evidence of this and this is completely conjecture, but it's possible they live longer in the wild because of brackish vs freshwater. 

[Tanked]

My LFS isn't very good at itemizing receipts.  My notes indicate that my Nerites are well into their fourth year.  Just this past week I thought I had finally lost one, but it apparently just forgot to hang on when napping.  An hour or so later it had found its friends.  

[gardenman]

Nerites are typically wild caught, so an accurate lifespan is difficult to assess as you don't know how old they were when caught. They start out as planktonic specks in the ocean then slowly transition into the snails we know and then slowly move into bays and rivers. To give you some perspective on their size as babies, the "eggs" we see in the tank are egg cases holding up to 100 eggs. So take one of the "eggs" you see the snails laying and chop it into a hundred equally sized specks and you get some idea of how small they are when hatched.  The ones we get in the aquarium trade are typically trapped in rivers either heading upstream as young adults to feed or as older snails heading out to the ocean to breed. Get a young guy/gal heading upstream to feed for the first time and you might get a long, long life from it. Get an old geezer heading out to the ocean for one last fling at breeding and you might get just a few months. I think if you get two or three years from one in an aquarium you should be pretty happy. If you got a very young one and everything went perfectly, five or more years might be possible. They're probably a creature that you'd want to buy as small as possible when you're buying them on the general assumption that a smaller one would be younger. That's not an absolute certainty as size varies, but given a choice opt for the smallest ones in the tank and hope they're younger rather than dwarf.

[Katherine]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:41 AM, gardenman said:

To give you some perspective on their size as babies, the "eggs" we see in the tank are egg cases holding up to 100 eggs. So take one of the "eggs" you see the snails laying

I lucked out and got a male as my first and only nerite, so I haven't actually seen the eggs in person. But I think I get the idea.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Katherine

[AndreaW]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:22 AM, Katherine said:

I lucked out and got a male as my first and only nerite, so I haven't actually seen the eggs in person. But I think I get the idea.

Here's a pic of my girl and the eggs she is laying. I was worried when people said their tanks were being overrun with eggs, but I find them kind of cute and it's fun to see a "trail" of where she has been. 

[Tanked]

On 3/25/2022 at 12:27 PM, AndreaW said:

Here's a pic of my girl and the eggs she is laying. I was worried when people said their tanks were being overrun with eggs, but I find them kind of cute and it's fun to see a "trail" of where she has been. 

Consider yourself lucky.  My girl(s) leave clusters of 15-20 eggs wherever the mood strikes.

Today I counted a group of 81 eggs on the glass.  That is a first both for quantity and location.   The Anubia rhizome a few inches away has so many eggs, that it appears white.   I wondering if this is age related behavior or just Spring's arrival in the aquarium.

[H.K.Luterman]

I've had my nerites for at least 4 years now.

[BrettD]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:07 AM, Tanked said:

My LFS isn't very good at itemizing receipts.  My notes indicate that my Nerites are well into their fourth year.  Just this past week I thought I had finally lost one, but it apparently just forgot to hang on when napping.  An hour or so later it had found its friends.  

I read that they have a hard time flipping over, so if I find any of mine on their backs they get a little assistance.