snail reproduction

[tikki50]

Hi

Kinda funny question I know but Im starting to have a small problem. I think I have some really horny snails. My tank has been setup for about a month now and a week or so ago I noticed some really small snails a bit larger than a pinhead. My question is how many babies do snails have? How are they born, ie. eggs? I have well over 50 babies now and it seems each one is a bit different in shell shape. Some are definetly turbos the others have long pointy shells more like a conch. I figures they might have come in on the live rock but I can't belive that many would have made the trip successfully. Im worried they are going to get sucked up by my pumps and they will cause pump failure when chewed up. Poor fellas.

I do have another question as well. At night I go down to my fish tank and view my night creatures using a video camera with nightshot. This allows me to see everything without them seeing me. Works great. But I noticed some type of worms coming out of the rocks almost 6" long and about 1/4" thick. Quite big IMO. Should these be removed? It would be difficult since they retract into the rock then the light comes on. I know they are not bristleworms or anything like that. They almost look like a long snail.

Thanks todd

 

[taikonaut]

You are not having a problem at all. Relax!

Snail can have many, many babies, in the thousands to billions. But 99.99% of them will not reach adulthood. You most likely have snails that comes in with the rock, esp. if you tank is relatively new. Snail is often the culpit with pump failure, so make sure you have bulkhead screen to keep out the large ones. Small snails usually are harmless to pump due to softer and smaller shell.

You can also use flash light to help you a little with night time viewing, some use a red filter to disturb the critter the least. For nightscope, you can use a IR LED (if you can't find one, point a TV remote at the tank with a button down... thing will be slightly brighter). Don't worry about the worm/snail unless you actually see it attacking livestock that you care about. It is a jungle in there, and you should be proud of it (some of us are frustrated by sterile sand bed!). Have fun!