Will all these eggs hatch?

littlemacros · Sep 11, 2020

So my two pro escape artist nerite snails decided to lay eggs about two weeks ago...all over my tank. Literally on the rocks, the pumps, even on my beloved turbo snail, Vagine. Most of the egg sacs on the glass have been developing it seems. I say this because when they were first layed they looked like one yellow blob in the center, but now most have enlarged and look to be hundres of tiny snails developing. I love inverts (only animals in my take currently) but I'm a tad concerned if all these guys will actually hatch. Of all the different snails in my tank (dwarf ceriths, periwinkles, marginellas, chitons, ninja star snails and turbo snail) my luck would be to have the daily escape artist snails (i.e nerites) lay a million eggs. Does anyone have experience with successful hatching of these guys? I'd love to know the duration of egg development, the success rate of hatching (if its even possible since I researched and found they prefer brackish water to hatch). I don't want to just scrape them off the glass because I would like to see them hatch if possible but I an unsure if this is a wise move due to the fact that there are so many. I keep my tank at a slightly lower salinity than normal as I've noticed it helps keep the nuisance algae at bay without disturbing my macros or inverts. So I'm curious when or if I'll have a surplus of baby nerites. Any info or stories on this topic would be greatly appreciated. I've attached some pics of the eggs that appear to be developing? Thanks everyone!

minus9 · Sep 11, 2020

littlemacros said:
So my two pro escape artist nerite snails decided to lay eggs about two weeks ago...all over my tank. Literally on the rocks, the pumps, even on my beloved turbo snail, Vagine. Most of the egg sacs on the glass have been developing it seems. I say this because when they were first layed they looked like one yellow blob in the center, but now most have enlarged and look to be hundres of tiny snails developing. I love inverts (only animals in my take currently) but I'm a tad concerned if all these guys will actually hatch. Of all the different snails in my tank (dwarf ceriths, periwinkles, marginellas, chitons, ninja star snails and turbo snail) my luck would be to have the daily escape artist snails (i.e nerites) lay a million eggs. Does anyone have experience with successful hatching of these guys? I'd love to know the duration of egg development, the success rate of hatching (if its even possible since I researched and found they prefer brackish water to hatch). I don't want to just scrape them off the glass because I would like to see them hatch if possible but I an unsure if this is a wise move due to the fact that there are so many. I keep my tank at a slightly lower salinity than normal as I've noticed it helps keep the nuisance algae at bay without disturbing my macros or inverts. So I'm curious when or if I'll have a surplus of baby nerites. Any info or stories on this topic would be greatly appreciated. I've attached some pics of the eggs that appear to be developing? Thanks everyone!

I've never had luck with them living past hatching. Usually they end up as food or eaten by tank inhabitants, but most likely picked off by your skimmer. Ceriths and strombus eggs will survive, with strombus having a large percentage that survive to adulthood, unless there are opportunistic fish, like wrasses that will eat them.