question for snail breeders

[joannde]

I'm trying to breed the small ramshorn and pond snails to feed to my dwarf puffers. I put a few (somewhere between 5 and 10) of each type into a 2.5G with some live plants. So far so good, they've laid eggs. However, the water STINKS ... like a dead mystery snail .... so I know there are dead snails in the tank, but I don't know how to tell which ones they are. Obviously a sniff test on each is not practical.
Do live pond snails or small ramshorns ever float while they are alive ? Do they ever curl up and close their "doors" if they are alive ??
I'd like to clean the dead ones out but don't want to take away any that are still alive.
Any thoughts ?

 

[hc8719]

i know some snails float when alive.

what if you picked off the ones crawling around on the glass or floor, put them in a bucket of water for an hour, check back on the maybe dead ones, put ones you think are alive in the bucket again, and then smell test the remaining ones.

chances are not all 10 snails are going to be moving around at once, this test limits potential dead ones

 

[joannde]

yeah - that would work --- but I'm being lazy so if there's an easier way I'll do that instead LOL. I figured I'd just feed the ones that are actively sticking to a surface to the DPs and hope that the dead ones get consumed by the live ones ... but the smell is ... well, you know what a dead snail smells like LOL.

btw, its not only Mystery snails that poop up a storm ! you should see all the detrius made by these guys !!!!!

 

[Jarred Darque]

I am guessing your not runing a filter?

 

[joannde]

Correct - didn't think I needed a filter to breed snails .... wrong, huh ?

 

[Mosaic]

I just run a simple sponge filter. It keeps the water from getting stagnant and that could help with the smell.
It gets to be pretty obvious who'd dead and who's not. Their little bodies don't take too long to deteriorate or get eaten and then the empty shells are easy to see. Plus, these guys are way more active than mysteries so there's less guesswork about who's dead or not.
Neither species has a "door" so you can't tell that way. Nor have I ever seen either species float , although I guess they could get an air bubble stuck in their shells. The pond snails are able to glide on the surface tension of the water though.

 

[Jarred Darque]

they can b e raised without a filter ust fine, but for your sake, I suggest one as you can tell, they can smell really bad. even a little sponge filter is good enough, and you dont have to worry about them being sucked into it.

Anotehr good place to raise them is in filter boxes on your tanks,

 

[joannde]

I was actually thinking that I might add a second small HOB filter onto the main tank as their breeding ground. Then I could free up the 2.5G for another betta LOLOLOL