when to move babies into tank with adults

[carly1979]

Hi,

When cleaning out my big snail tank a few weeks back I discovered that what I had previously thought had been a couple of eggs was in fact a lot more than that and I now had 14 snail babies!! Not what I really expected, as they've been laying eggs on and off for a while but they've never hatched before as they'd never buried them before.

Anyway, I carefully moved the hatchlings out of the big tank and have been keeping them in a little tupperware container with substrate, water, food and cuttlefish. As time's gone on more and more of them seem to be coming to the surface to feed. I had initially thought only a couple of them had survived the move, but I think the rest were just hanging out underground for a bit. The most I've seen at the surface is 7.

Anyway, what I wanted to ask was how big should I allow the babies to get before putting them in the big tank with the fully grown snails? I really don't want them to get crushed or anything! At the moment their shells are probably around 5mm across, at the most.

Any advice?

Edited to add: I forgot to say, these are Achatina Fulica snails :-)

[Bumblebee]

I would let them get as big as possible before letting them move into the adults tank, at most, just a few centimeters smaller. Cause if they are too small, they can risk getting mantle injuries if an adult snail would decide to climb over them while they are on the tank walls or roof.

Just make sure then to check regulary for eggs, so that you dont get baby snails that got parents that are related.

[copigeon]

From practical experience Ive always found this to be a misconception - young snails are very robust. If youre rearing an unusual species its worth separating young for the sake of assuring non competition of food - and I find that rearing young snails in an adults tank will making cleaning a hard job - they produce alot of waste in large numbers.
However even hatchling fulica - as tiny as they are - will be quite alright from day 1 in an adult enclosure.

Slightly off topic but its been raised:
Inbreeding is not an issue with snails - its a lack of selective breeding which creates repetition of undesirable genetic traits. The majority of fulica are related. All iredalei are related! They came from the same initial collected pair a long time ago. All rodatzi come from the same selection of rodatzi, etc etc.
If youre conscious of the genetic quality of your snails, dont breed from small, stunted, or iregular looking snails.

[vallery]

I plan to wait until my babies get as big as possible before moving them back in with the adults due to cleaning the adult tank and needing to be able to find the babies so you can clean their tank. Thing is right now I have about 200 little babies so I will need to make them a new terrarium. I plan to let mine go in the spring my back deck and back yard are their natural habitat.

[foghog]

sounds like a ok plan to me. it is a huge hassle cleaning a tank with babies and adults. I always separate them.

[saki114]

I would move babies almost immedialy cuz I dont want to risk chances of them
1) get lost
2) get run over by adults
3) crawl right through the airholes
thats only what I think though...