Raising Mystery Snails - First Time!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:59 AM, Katherine said:

I might have snailbreak (jailbreak) photos to share later today. We'll see if I get to it.

I had a bad dream last night that all my snails escaped, and there was a party and a lot of foot traffic where they could be trampled by people. Needless to say, I didn't like that dream.  Woke up and checked my lid.  Duct tape still there over the gaps. Whew! 🙂 

[Katherine]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:03 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I had a bad dream last night that all my snails escaped, and there was a party and a lot of foot traffic where they could be trampled by people. Needless to say, I didn't like that dream.

In times of stress I've often had fish tank nightmares. Usually about the tanks we had when I was a kid. (The only one I remember well was a guppy breeding tank with wayyy more fish than it should have had and an absolute explosion of pest snails that was not well maintained.) All the fish are dieing, I have to do massive water changes and something goes wrong, fish are in the wrong tanks and I have to sort it out, type of stuff. And most of these were before I actually had a tank as an adult. Most recently though it was in the house we had those tanks in, but it was my current fish this time, and they were all just swimming out of the tanks into the air and I had to figure out how to put them back and get them to stay there so they wouldn't die from being out of water.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/3/2022 at 9:08 AM, Katherine said:

In times of stress I've often had fish tank nightmares. Usually about the tanks we had when I was a kid. (The only one I remember well was a guppy breeding tank with wayyy more fish than it should have had and an absolute explosion of pest snails that was not well maintained.) All the fish are dieing, I have to do massive water changes and something goes wrong, fish are in the wrong tanks and I have to sort it out, type of stuff. And most of these were before I actually had a tank as an adult. Most recently though it was in the house we had those tanks in, but it was my current fish this time, and they were all just swimming out of the tanks into the air and I had to figure out how to put them back and get them to stay there so they wouldn't die from being out of water.

Oh my gosh, I've had the fish swimming in the air dream too!  Like they were swimming up above the tank. Didn't seem stressed or anything?  They were just swimming normally, but either behind the tank or above.

And also I have had dreams where I've kept multiple tanks in basements and stuff and then forgot about them, and when I returned to them, the water quality was so poor that fish were laying on the bottom gasping and stuff.  And as hard as I tried, I couldn't recall the last time I even fed them or looked in the tank. Those dreams are awful!  (I don't even have a basement anymore, but I did when I lived up north)

Now I'm curious, so I'm going to start a thread to see what other NERMs have had.

[Katherine]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:41 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Oh my gosh, I've had the fish swimming in the air dream too!  Like they were swimming up above the tank. Didn't seem stressed or anything?  They were just swimming normally, but either behind the tank or above

That's exactly it! The fish seemed totally fine, but I was panicked. Like there was some time limit on it and they would be not okay if I didn't get them back in time. Every time I managed to get one back in a tank more would leave.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/3/2022 at 9:45 AM, Katherine said:

That's exactly it! The fish seemed totally fine, but I was panicked. Like there was some time limit on it and they would be not okay if I didn't get them back in time. Every time I managed to get one back in a tank more would leave.

Right, I was like, OK.  How is this even possible?  What is going on?  And while they were moving so slowly, they were still hard to find/catch for some reason.

[Guppysnail]

On 8/3/2022 at 9:41 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

And also I have had dreams where I've kept multiple tanks in basements and stuff and then forgot about them, and when I returned to them, the water quality was so poor that fish were laying on the bottom gasping and stuff.

OMG I’ve had this only mine the fish reproduced so much and got so large they burst the tanks and became predatory TO ME 😲 and somehow there is always an alligator involved 🤷‍♀️

[Katherine]

Babies have been liberated! I counted 37 as I took them out of the breeder box, plus 3 or 4 baby bladder snails who must have hitched in on the moss ball. I think there are 7 ivory/gold snails and 30 (!) blue.

This photo is just after I set them on my algae covered decor. Half-ish are still up there about an hour later. I figured that would be a good spot to put their calcium block for now. There are 3 nomming on it currently.

A few took off almost immediately.

This brave soul took a hitchhiking bladder snail straight to the bottom of the tank and took off.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Katherine

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

ORD!

[Katherine]

The babies are 2 weeks old today and all over the tank.

Look at that cute little face!

Penny (mom) pushed the baby off the calcium block right after this picture. 😂 But look at how small they are next to her!

[redfish]

Very nice.  I want to add a mystery snail to our collection.

[Katherine]

The fish are enjoying their first sera o-nip tab, and so is this baby! It's been munching away for about 5 minutes now.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 8/4/2022 at 4:43 PM, Katherine said:

The babies are 2 weeks old today and all over the tank.

Look at that cute little face!

Penny (mom) pushed the baby off the calcium block right after this picture. 😂 But look at how small they are next to her!

Photo 3 there are spiky things along the edge of the shell. That means shell growth spurt occurring.

[CKetchum]

There really isn't anything cuter in a fish tank then baby Mystery Snails 🥰

[CKetchum]

Tiny aliens! I can't help but hearing nom, nom, nom......nom when they are eating or going weeeee when the parasnail. 

[Katherine]

It's been a bit since I updated. I have a large range of sizes between the babies, but everyone seems to be doing well. They mostly hang out near the corner with the food dish, but climb the glass and like to ride hanging upside down from the duckweed.

I believe all the lighter shelled babies are golds like I originally thought, but I haven't counted them so it's possible I've got an ivory sneaking under the radar.

I won't be home when the tank lights are on until Wednesday, so I'll try to remember to take some pictures then.

[Katherine]

I counted 6 gold babies today. So there's possibly 1 ivory hiding, but I think it's more likely that the last one is also gold.

The largest babies are now about the size that Penny and Goldilocks we're when we got them. The other adults were larger at purchase.

This one clutch is by no means conclusive, but it leads me to think that gold shells are more dominant than white and dark feet more dominant than light, genetically. Since I could have gotten ivory babies from either father and didn't get any.

[Katherine]

I found the 7th gold baby. I'm now certain there are no ivory babies.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I love those moonwalkers! 😍

[Katherine]

This guy is kind of an odd color. Dark foot, but more gray than blue. What do you guys think? 2nd pic is a blue one for comparison.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Katherine

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Looks like my Dodger, which I believe is a blue snail.

(Photo shows new shell growth color difference)

[Katherine]

On 8/28/2022 at 7:02 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Looks like my Dodger, which I believe is a blue snail.

This guy is on the smaller side, though not tiny, compared to the rest of the clutch. I'll be interested to see how it's color goes as it grows.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I think it's odd that the snails don't grow at the same rate.  I had 4/35 that stayed significantly smaller.  I don't know if that means that they were weaker or didn't eat as much or what.

[Katherine]

Here's a better picture of the gray color right next to the blue. I've drawn arrows to 2 of them. There may be a 3rd, but I'm not 100% on that. The one in the food dish is one of the largest babies. The one on the glass is average/smallish.