baby mystery snails

[indrajitmasuda]

After cleaning the tank i reintroduced all the babies.  A nice pic of the parents and their numerous progeny all together:




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[indrajitmasuda]

As the bay mystery snails grow they forage at the water level whenever fish food pellets are dropped - a nice pic showing how determined they are:


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[indrajitmasuda]

Well the sexond tank has also become fertile with one egg pod bursting to send forth newborn baby mystery snails - a wonder of nature for me when 6 months ago there was total failure - now i see about 50 more tiny ahrdly visible babes foraging away on their first day of life . Ive tried to capture a few pics of their arrival:










Now in the first tank the 70 odd babes are growing real fast as you can see on the previous post and in the second tank they  about 50 are smalll dots which i see moving around with enormous joy.

[indrajitmasuda]

Im quite amazed at the rate at which the golden mystery snail babses are growing. As you can see they are now almost a forth of the adult parent.

[Duhevilweeble]

Sounds like they are bladder snails to me.

[indrajitmasuda]

these are no bladder snails - exact copies of the parents - last time i mistook my failure with an invasion of bladder snails and got rid of them as soon as the real golden ones arrived. comparethe parent above with the babes.

[indrajitmasuda]

THE NEW BATCH OF AROUND 100 BABY MYSTERY GOLDEN SNAILS IN THE SECOND TANK - A WONDER OF NATURE FINALLY ACHIEVED IN TWO TANKS WHEREAS ALL PREVIOUS ATTEMTS HAD FAILED:





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These babies are about 10 days old forever foraging

[indrajitmasuda]

 Above is Second batch weeks old and devavouring empty sea shells which were there for decoration, to meet their need for calcium as their own shells grow !!!



 above is First batch now more than a month old and 1/4 th the size of adults.




 above is the second batch , ever growing numbers as they emerge from several egg pods you can see planted on the top of the tank by the proliferating adult pair. One as you can see is almost empty now having released the baby snails hatching in the pods, another has broken open partially to release its own load and two on either side are still to break open.


I remain overwhelmed by the success i luckily achieved after total failure to produce even one baby golden mystery snail on the last try i foolishly mistook  the invasion of bladder snails as baby mstery snails - see previous posts where i was enlightened by knowledgable snail lovers that it looked like my egg pods were sterile!!

[indrajitmasuda]

With the numerous golden mystery snail babies growing fast I wondered where they got their calcium for such phenomenal and numerous growth of over 100 babes. I found my answer!! I had put several collectors sea shells in the aquariums. To my surprise i found that something had started consuming these shells leaving behind their skeletons. Probably the babes have the ability to consume these shells to augment their calcium and aid in the growth of their own shells. I also found a dead adult with half eaten shell. Surely this is cannibal behavior unless the shell was consumed after the death of the adult. Any experts like to comment on this?


The remains of the sea shells:

[indrajitmasuda]

ONE MORE QUESTION - DO MYSTERY SNAILS HAVE TEETH???

[wolf]

Hi indrajitmasuda,

yes, all species of the family Ampullariidae and the family Viviparidae have a "radula" with rather strong and large teeth.

Kind regards: wolf

[indrajitmasuda]

Thanks Wolf.
Only explanation for what happened to my sea shells. The other question is more a cause of concern. Can they begin to consume the shell of a living adult?? To my horror i found one live adult with a hole in his shell. Thats then no cute baby who begins to feed on his parents shell eventually killing him.
Kind regards.

[littlegoldsnail]

Snails will rasp on each other’s shells if there is not enough calcium or the tank is overcrowded. Primarily the second of the two. I tried to warn you of the issues of hatching so many snails in a small environment without predators. There are too many snails for the environment and not enough calcium or space to keep up so they are mouthing each other and rasping on each other’s shells.

FYI, snails don’t exactly have teeth, it’s more of a tongue with a bunch of tiny barb/teeth things on it (similar in texture to the tongue of cat). It’s actually classified as an organ, but it’s in their mouth and they use it to “rasp” on things (more like scraping, not biting).

[wolf]

Hi all,

fyi: snails do have teeth. The "structures" on the surface of the radula are referred to as "teeth" throughout the specialist literature. The papillae on a cats tongue consist of keratin, the teeth of snails consist of a chitin-like substance. There a many different kinds of radulae, depending on the diet. In predatory snail species the teeth are rather lange with sharp edges, f.e.. In some maritime families (f.e. Patellidae) "goethit" (an iron-containing mineral) is imbedded in the basic mass of the teeth. In fact these teeth are the hardest material in nature. With their teeth some snails are rasping, others are biting and so on.......... .

Kind regards: wolf

[indrajitmasuda]

I have some sea foam - calcium for budgies - can i put a piece of that into the tanks to provide calcium?

[Carlylou]

I have 2 snails, reasonably new, no plants and noticed this morning a few tiny baby snails, theres not a lot in my tank an no seen eggs at alll could someone help me please