Baby Mystery Snails! The Journey

[finbean3]

Most of my posts have been about fish death, so I am pleased to post one with some life to it. Make sure you read to the end though.

Amongst the two first mystery snails that I picked up from the local pet store (big chain) along with some Danios, it turned out that one of them was male and the other was female! While it is often thought that snails are sexless, it turns out that Apple/Mystery snails do actually have distinct sexes!

As a result, the female mystery snail laid a first clutch of eggs!

And then a second.

In my excitement, I did my research and decided to follow the guidance to incubate them. The first clutch eventually hatched and I tried breaking apart the clutch in a breeder basket to assist. However, I decided it would be best to move the basket to a separate aquarium to ensure they were protected from the fish.

However, it was during this period that I lost sight of all the baby snails.

After adding food and waiting for evidence of the baby snails, it became evident that none were appearing.

 

As you can see, the basket was getting rather filthy and dirty. I figured out how to clean the breeder basket, and in the process, found about 13 baby snail shells. None had survived.

As for the second clutch, I thought I initially saw some baby snails, but it turned out to just be worms. After more than a month, it was determined to not be viable.

 

Unfortunately, this mama snail passed away. She had the added challenge of a hurt foot that she had burned in an accident in the 55 gallon tank. I imagine that took a toll on her. This happened before she started laying her 2 clutches.

However, the male snail survived and we acquired 4 more mystery snails. At least 3 of them are female, and I suspect all 4 might be. And as soon as they were introduced into the 40 gallon aquarium with our existing mystery snails, they started mating with our male mystery snail. As a result, we started to see a lot of clutches appear in the aquarium!

 

After a couple weeks of ongoing egg laying, the first clutch has hatched!! It wasn't even the first clutch laid. It turned out that the clutch behind the filter hatched first, and tonight we have our first live baby mystery snails in the 40 gallon aquarium!!!!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Hooray! Congratulations! Check out my mystery snail journal link below if you want to see the procedure I followed for raising them. Baby snails will first go after biofilm, so a powdery food such as fry food, powdered (not prepared) Repashy, or bacter ae will be a great start for them. However, water quality is key, so I would test every day to ensure success. As they grow their bioload can throw off parameters.

Note: the first food I used was hard boiled egg yolk. I would not use that again because it was way too messy and fouls the water quickly.

[finbean3]

I am due to post an update on the baby mystery snails: they appear to be thriving in the tank and have followed the lead of our first pioneers whom we will call "Louis and Clark" 😄

 

Thank you Chick-In-Of-TheSea for your recommendation of the biofilm. I've been crushing up Crab Cuisine and adding to our aquarium which seems to be received well. At present, the baby snails are on all four walls of our 40 Gallon snail aquarium.

From what I can gather, the female mystery snails are excited about the new babies.

And the babies appear to be quite attached to the adult mystery snails.

Edited January 15 by finbean3
Too many "also's"