Mystery/Apple Snail Eggs

So I found a nice light raspberry colored log of eggs the other day in my tank from my snails. I had to pull it out as it was directly over the intake to my filter, and I didn't want them to get sucked in when they hatched. Now I have them in a Betta cup from when I bought mine, I put about 1/3" water in the bottom and a folded up paper towel. The eggs are sitting on the paper towel above the water, and I have the cup sitting inside the tank pressed up against the glass lid.

My question now is, how quickly will I need to move them into the tank when they hatch? Or should I rig another means of keeping the eggs dry while giving the upcoming babies a means of dropping down into the tank?

The real problem is you are going to have a gazillion snails soon. Escargot anyone?

no need to worry about then getting to the water..check them daily in about a week you will see them start to turn gray and icky looking, they are about to hatch,

the egg pack will collapse on its self OR the will eat holes out of it,

in both cases just let them come mostly out and push them in to the water from the incubator, mine sits on top of my tank and i keep an eye on it,


so wait till they are starting to come out... pull it in two and dump the entire thing in to the tank..I have noticed my babies do better with the egg pack in the water they seem to eat it ^_^

I do this because I have watched my egg packs hatch in the tank and it all just falls off in to it and they cling to it eating it..and in the wild it would just plop in to the water as well.

what color snails do you have? you'll be surprised how much people want them!

The one I believe is the mother is white body white shell, and the father is gray shell gray body with tiny orange specks on the body.

hmmm, gray could be "blue". Photos?

Might be considered a blue. I know her body is dark gray, just notice the orange specks on her yesterday. Her shell is a very light gray. I'll try to get a pic.

Although I'm thinking I may have two females. Either that or there the first batch was there longer than I thought. I didn't see who put the first one up, but the white was near it when I found it. I just looked in and the gray is putting up a second bunch of eggs! And in the same damn spot right next to the intake pipe on my HoB XD

And I know it can't be a case of carrying sperm from the store as I've had these two almost a year now.

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Top looking down picture


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From inside the tank looking front to back



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The eggs from the first batch


Sorry for the pics, had to use my phone to get them. Her shell is slightly darker than in the pictures, but with a definite gray tint to it, just a couple shades lighter than if you had made a light mark on white paper using a pencil. The only reason my water is that low right now is the landlord has been messing with the pipes in the house the past week so I've been wanting to let things settle down before I went doing a water change.

Yup, I believe that's a blue - at least that's what I called mine! Very cool... I've been looking casually for blues for a while, though with my success being spotty at best lately, I don't know if I'll ever get any more. Good luck with the eggs!

mm the paper towel you have the eggs on looks really soggy i would try to keep them a bit dryer, just humid not damp..

good luck with your snails and yes it does look like a blue! ^_^

Well, I noticed several eggs on the side are now open on the first batch, but I'm not finding any babies at all. The eggs are taking on a cloudy gray-ish look from the original coloring, is this normal?

And last question, how can you tell if the eggs are infertile?

Gray and sort of moldy-looking is a good sign - they'll be hatching soon. Infertile eggs stay a uniform pink for over a month.

I just hope they hang on until I'm home. I want to watch them hatch, not to mention they're currently floating in an old Betta cup from petsmart with no water in it and no access to the water. I have it mostly submerged to keep the temp inside up, with my glass lid holding it down and in place.

With my latest bunch of eggs I sat the clutch on top of a bit of aquaclear filter foam in a disposable plastic food container with a quarter inch of water on the bottom. The foam was about 1/2" thick or so. When the snails hatch they can crawl down through the foam to the water, yet the clutch doesn't get soaked. I kept the lid on but left one of the corners open and I sat it on top of one of my tanks to keep it warm. I got a ton of healthy baby snails that way.

So tomorrow will mark two weeks since I found the first clutch. I read somewhere that at two weeks you should break the clutch apart to get the snails out. Should I try this or just let them come out on their own?

I have never broken one open to free them

Thanks!

Well, I'm still not seeing any babies yet and it's been three weeks since the first clutch has hatched. Some of the outer eggs have broken open, but that appears to be it. I've noticed the color is staying pink, the kinda cloudy coloring changed back so I think they are infertile.

So I ended up dumping the clutches, almost at 4 weeks now with no change. I also lost the white one over the holiday week, looks like she climbed out the back and fell behind the tank. I thought it was hiding in the hollow log like usual, but when I went looking for her today I found her on the floor and very smelly dead.

On a side note, I'm now looking for a jade briggs and a violet briggs to set up in my 30 hex. Anyone happen to have any for sale?

I have a few of these for sale
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So I think I figured out what happened with my White snail. While draining the 29 to prepare it for the background I'm putting in, I noticed my light was cutting in and out. I flipped it over to check the bulb, and found a huge clutch of eggs inside my light! I have no clue how they managed to get around the glass top enough to get into the light.

So my guess is, it laid the clutch in the light, then while trying to get back down into the tank went over the back.

aww sad !

in my 65 they lay eggs up in my light hoods all the time, I have no glass lad for it and they just go back in to the water, only ever had one snail make it out of the tank, but she was super old.

I know, I had that snail for almost a year now, raised it from a tiny pea sized to almost the size of a golf ball.

I also learned with these two that they really really like amazon frogsbit. I had ordered some from Aquabid, put the frogsbit in the tank with the plan of having it grow out to form some shading, and within three days it was all gone.