Growing and selling Ramshorn or other snails?

[Fishfur]

What media is in the Whisper ? Floss might help a bit, it's excellent for water polishing. Carbon may help, though generally I think it is just not necessary at all, for this it may be helpful.

If that's not helping, might try changing all the water, but not all at once. Take out half, refill tank. Take out half, refill tank. Take out half, refill tank, and then one more time, being sure to suck out whatever is left of the algae wafer too. Be sure to match temperatures with the new water and use a good dechlorinator.. I like Prime, myself.

Fwiw, using established tank water doesn't help in terms of cycling. Seeding a new filter with rinsings from cleaning of or media from a filter that is established makes a huge difference, you can cycle virtually instantly that way.

Another thing that might help would be to toss in a few plants, if possible.

Some tap water can look cloudy when it first comes out because it's full of air bubbles. Many taps today have restrictors on them, to reduce water usage and they can cause a huge number of tiny bubbles, but if that's what happened, you would have seen the air bubbles clinging to the sides of the tank, and you'd also notice the cloud slowly clearing over a few hours time as the bubbles rose to the surface.

 

[cherokeeluvr]

What media is in the Whisper ? Floss might help a bit, it's excellent for water polishing. Carbon may help, though generally I think it is just not necessary at all, for this it may be helpful.

If that's not helping, might try changing all the water, but not all at once. Take out half, refill tank. Take out half, refill tank. Take out half, refill tank, and then one more time, being sure to suck out whatever is left of the algae wafer too. Be sure to match temperatures with the new water and use a good dechlorinator.. I like Prime, myself.

Fwiw, using established tank water doesn't help in terms of cycling. Seeding a new filter with rinsings from cleaning of or media from a filter that is established makes a huge difference, you can cycle virtually instantly that way.

Another thing that might help would be to toss in a few plants, if possible.

Some tap water can look cloudy when it first comes out because it's full of air bubbles. Many taps today have restrictors on them, to reduce water usage and they can cause a huge number of tiny bubbles, but if that's what happened, you would have seen the air bubbles clinging to the sides of the tank, and you'd also notice the cloud slowly clearing over a few hours time as the bubbles rose to the surface.

I just have the cartridge that comes with it, but I will add filter floss right now. I will take out the algae wafer too. And don't have any kind of established things I can put in right now... And don't have any extra plants either. I added prime yesterday when I filled it just to give it a good start.


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[cherokeeluvr]

Oh my god... I just went over to the tank and saw eggs.. Looked around and there are already 7+ egg bunches! Dang!! How long does it take for them to hatch?


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[Fishfur]

This started out as a thread on snails, and now we're on shrimp.. and I fear I've missed asking a very important question.

Is this tank cycled. It sounds as though it's not. If the sponge is new and the Whisper is new and you have no other tanks, then this one can't be cycled, can it ? Have you read the articles here, the stickies, on cycling a tank ? I fear you may be in for a shock.

Shrimp are great, for one thing, because they don't produce the big bioload that fish do. But they are also very intolerant of ammonia or nitrite, which are what waste becomes.

So if what happens is that you end up trying to cycle this tank with shrimp in it, you may be risking losing the shrimp when ammonia does begin to accumulate. It can take weeks to cycle a filter, or longer, and during that time, there aren't enough beneficial bacteria [BB] to convert the waste, which means ammonia can build up. That can kill shrimp quickly.

I hope you have the test kits for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and pH as well. If at all possible, get some plants, because they will both help a cycle and help use up waste products themselves.

The shrimp can easily go a few days without food, so don't feed them right away, which will help keep the bioload down. Be prepared to do as many water changes as you must to prevent ammonia levels from going above 0. Fishless cycling is the kind you do without any livestock. For cycles where you do have fish, a Fish In cycle, one of the reasons a fish in cycle can work is because fish both produce a lot more, and are a bit more tolerant of ammonia than shrimp are. Cycling is the process of BB of two kinds becoming established in the filter media, to turn ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into nitrate.. which is much less toxic than ammonia or nitrite is.

Do test the water daily, you're going to have to be right on top of any buildup of ammonia or nitrite. If at all possible, try to get some used media from someone else, another hobbyist, or even a local store might be willing to give you a bit of used media. Put it in the whisper and it will cycle it almost instantly and prevent risking the shrimp.

Cloudy water is the least of your problems if this tank is uncycled.

Snail eggs ? I"m not sure, but not very long. A couple or three weeks maybe, I think.

 

[cherokeeluvr]

This is a snail tank... I just put in 50 red ramshorn snails today... I have a shrimp tank but this is not what it is about.. I might have accadently typed shrimp though :/ sorry if I did. And the sponge filter is new, the other filter has been used but was dry for a while, and the water came from my other two established tanks... I'm not sure exactly what you understood, but I have two other tanks and this one I'm talking about is a snail only tank. I have a water test kit and will keep up with testing it.


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[cherokeeluvr]

Why did you think this was about shrimp? I never said shrimp I just looked through the messages and never did :|


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[Fresh2o]

Post #11 mentions shrimp as a reference to recessive traits. Post #12 IMO inadvertently mentions shrimp arriving this week. Pretty sure you meant snails.
Congrats on the egg clusters.


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[Fishfur]

Sorry.. I'm really tired and I was just reading another post about red shrimp. I think I saw the word red and just automatically thought 'shrimp' and thought OMG, if the tank is not cycled, this is a disaster waiting to happen.. so I'm pleased it's still about snails !!

Even snails are not happy with ammonia though.. you're still going to have to cycle the tank, or else do regular water changes so that ammonia doesn't build up. Snails make a fair bit of poop, but they also do not produce ammonia like fish do.. which helps.

The eggs are typical of ramshorns.. they will lay them on anything at all. Plants, glass, rocks, whatever. Be interesting to find out when they hatch, I've always wondered how long it takes but I usually never know when they were laid.

 

[cherokeeluvr]

Oh ok! And yes, I know it will have to cycle. But they seem to be doing well. Most are in the corner with the filters and heater and I'm going to call that the "breeding" corner. They are all bunched together and there are just tons of eggs. I mean they have been in the tank for all of 6 hours straight out of a package where I thought they were all dead because it was 28 degrees today.. They all floated then started moving around! There were 8/60 dead. But from going to the package and 6 hours later I have about 10 batches of eggs now, that's pretty crazy! And most of them are small. I think this will be a very easy money making thing!


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[Fishfur]

Wish you success with it. For such little critters, they can be surprisingly interesting at times. Always surprises me that they are air breathers !

 

[cherokeeluvr]

Thanks, they are pretty cool! And really? That would explain why they like hanging near the filters (they blow lots of bubbles)! And oh my gosh there at least 30 egg bunches now.. It's been like 30 hours


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[AbsurdAj]

White ramshorn

Apparently there is a variant of ramshorn snail with White shells and yellowish bodies. I had a few of these guys pop up out of my red ramshorn colony. I wonder if this trait can be breeded successfully or it's just a random genetic glitch.

 

[Fishfur]

That would be neat to see. Hope I will see one some day. If you have more than one, there's at least a shot at breeding this trait. But you would need two, as if it is genetic, it will likely be very recessive, so two copies of the gene would be needed; one from each parent.

Even though they are hermaphrodites, they do mate and exchange genetic material. Then each one lays eggs. So if you find you have two, put them together by themselves and hope for the best.

 

[cherokeeluvr]

I should have about 300 in a few weeks so I will see how they all look!


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[AbsurdAj]

That would be neat to see. Hope I will see one some day. If you have more than one, there's at least a shot at breeding this trait. But you would need two, as if it is genetic, it will likely be very recessive, so two copies of the gene would be needed; one from each parent.

Even though they are hermaphrodites, they do mate and exchange genetic material. Then each one lays eggs. So if you find you have two, put them together by themselves and hope for the best.

Here's another pic I got of the biggest white ram of the group.
I have about three of them(maybe a few more)from what I can tell. I'll try breeding them and seeing if the trait can be passed on. If I'm successfull I would love to give some out to you guys as celebration. Wish me luck!

 

[amyb_70]

Congrats Cherokee!!!! Sounds like your plan is really taking off. I'm happy for you and wishing you well on your future sales. $$ CHA' CHING. $$.



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[cherokeeluvr]

Haha thanks! It's crazy how fast they breed! I'm actually thinking that some eggs will hatch within a week or so, they are growing pretty fast in the little eggs and some of the snails fill up about 3/4 of their egg sack thing!


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