Table of Contents
Breeding Mystery Snail and Eggs
Since mystery snails are essentially gonochoristic, reproduction requires the physical presence of both a female and a male snail.
The mystery snail and its breeding process are therefore your best bet if you want to increase your snail population without having buy.
The female mystery snail and the male mystery snail can reproduce without any help, they just need to meet and no conditions at all.
Just make a room for them and lower the level of the water by some inches to enable them lay, also keep enough food for them and for the generation they are about to make.
Where do they lay eggs?
When the female species of the mystery snail is ready to lay eggs, the process happens at the water top. They leave the eggs in its cocoon, which makes it easy to spot the eggs and get rid of the eggs if the aquarists does not want any baby snails.
Eggs can also be placed in other aquarium ornaments, rocks, and pebbles; that is why it is always recommended that you carefully inspect, dip and even quarantine any new items that will enter into your tank.
It is common for certain species of snails to lay their eggs right next to a glass. Ampullariidae snails, commonly called apple snails, are able to lay their eggs both in and out of the water due to their ability to breathe using both gills and lungs. When the eggs are laid above the water, there is air around the cocoon to keep it moist, and the egg hatches in about a month.
What do mystery snail eggs look like?
While each type of snail will have different eggs, in the case of freshwater snail their eggs are easier to see in freshwater aquarium. The snail’s eggs will be clumped together with a ribbon and may have a transparent sac that holds them together.
The eggs resembles transparent jelly bubbles and can take on a variety of colours, depending on the species of snail.
In most cases, hatching is indicated by a slight color change and the appearance of dark spots on fertilized eggs, while the absence of such a change in unfertilized eggs indicates that the clutch did not hatch.
How to hatch mystery snail eggs
Here are the steps to hatching the mystery snail eggs;
1. Make sure there is enough humidity
You should keep the humidity up. If you do not, the clutch will dry out and will not hatch. You can use the heater aquarium for this.
To know that there is humidity, there has to be condensation. When using a heater, to make a condensation, the tank needs to be warmer than room temperature.
2. Remove the eggs
Wait at least 48 hours before trying to move the clutch. At that point it becomes very difficult. It changes appearance, gets darker whereas before it was pale pink.
You don’t want to wait too long because it starts to become fragile when they start hatching. If you keep goldfish (or other fish that can eat baby snails), you will need to move the clutch orthey can end up eaten when they hatch in the tank.
3. Transfer to a Hatching Spot
What is a hatching spot? This is where your eggs will be until they are hatched.
If you want to keep the eggs separated from the other inhabitants in the tank, you can make them an incubator by suspending a plastic box above the water line with a small amount of water in it to store the eggs and give them the nutrients they need.
You can also separate part of the tank with a filling net and create a separate egg space. Be sure to keep the conditions stable for the eggs to thrive.
Even under the best of circumstances, not all eggs will produce snails. Some eggs may go unfertilized.
The size of the snail will increase with the size of the egg collection. When snails reach a certain size, their shells harden and change color.
When the mystery snails for the baby are big enough, you can either release them from the incubator into the tank with the fish or move them to a larger tank.
How to Determine If the mystery snail eggs are fertile
You may not always be able to determine that simply by looking at them. The eggs will appear darker when healthy. If, at the end of this period, you do not see any baby snails hanging in your tank, it is safe to conclude that the eggs are not hatching. You can remove them from the tank and dispose.
What if I Don’t Want More Snails?
While you probably can’t prevent mystery snails from laying eggs, you can control the amount of snails you want in your tank. If you see a group of eggs, you should remove them before hatching. The sooner you remove them, the better, because some clutch hatch faster than others.
