Breeding Pond Snails: Effeciency?

[Mighty Prawn]

So I've had a bunch of pond snails breeding for a couple months now, and the process seems clumsy at best.

I keep the temperature at 77 degrees in their 2.5 gallon tank, I recently moved them into a 2.5 from a 5. My reasoning is that I have read that the babies need to have food readily available, and if the crawl is too far to get something to eat they will probably die. So I figured in a 2.5 there would be less distance to travel. I feed sinking algae tablets, new life spectrum large fish formula, and a flake food.

They lay egg sacs plenty often, but the problem is in cleaning. How do I clean up the massive waste, without sucking up babies all the time? They're always hiding in the waste, and I end up sucking them up, whether I use a small gravel vac or a turkey baster.

Most people I hear of breed their pond snails in a bucket, so it should be simple.

Do I simply ignore the lost snails? Or is there a better way? My remaining puffer has really "come alive" since it lost its tank mate, and is always hunting snails, swimming around all the time, but I'm finding that my snail population isn't keeping up with its eating habits. I'm going to try adding 2 adult red ramshorn snails into the tank. Hopefully they are big enough that the puffer won't try to eat them, and hopefully they will breed, and the babies will provide a constant source of snails.

Tips/tricks?

-Hideo

[TheGr8Blade]

Canadbis would be a good person to PM. He breeds alot over at his place. Might be of some help to you.

[Dave]

Bare bottom 10g tank kept at around 75'F was what worked best for my pond snails. Every now and then I dropped some cabomba in for them to munch on. AC150 filter. It did not seem too difficult for the small snails to get around in. No light either.

The key is the bare bottom. With thousands of snails littering the bottom of the tank, you don't want to have to worry about burying half your population under the gravel. I suppose you could add a handful of crushed coral to help buffer the water to keep their shells strong, but that would be as far as I would go.

Some snails did get vaccumed up during cleaning, but I just picked them out of the bucket after. Losses are to be expected, but growth was certainly adequate to feed a puffer snail treats a couple times a week.

[jvision]

I would forgo adding the ramshorn snails directly to your puffer tank - they'll likely be a snack in short order. The puff will just bit thru the shell, no matter how big the snail is (except maybe a softball-sized apple snail )

[Dave]

what kind of puffer do you have?

[Mighty Prawn]

what kind of puffer do you have?

Never determined for sure. Some people are convinced it's a Fangs, some say Red Spot, some say Brown puffer, and a couple of people say it's a nile puffer.

-Hideo

[Vapor]

Canadbis would be a good person to PM. He breeds alot over at his place

Been doing a little spying? :ph43r: :hey: :smokey:

[Dave]

Oh yeah, thats right. I forgot about that mystery ID.

Definitely not a Nile puffer though. Fahakas are pretty distinct

[Tanker]

I have a 5 gallon I use for Endler fry with a small bit of wood in it with some java fern and a bare bottom, and the pond snails in there breed like crazy. I literally have to scrape the bottom of the tank to remove 100 or so every week to keep the population down. Clean water, lots of food and a decent temperature seem to be the keys. I have had many snail breeding tanks in the past year, and dirty water seems to be the worst thing, period. Snails are disgusting, themselves so keep up the vacuuming.