what on earth is my snail doing?

[Mephistopheles]

Hello, about a month and a half ago I stocked my 30gallon cube with 3 turbo and 5 cerinth snails to clean up the algae. They have since done a tremendous job. This morning, though, I noticed one of the cerinths leaving some sort of trail on the glass right in front. It's white and seems to be made up of tiny bubbles and zigzags back and forth in short little half inch zags. I don't have a picture yet, if needed I can post one later. Perhaps this is normal behavior, I wouldn't know. If you know what's going on, I'd really like to know. It's very interesting to watch anyway. Thanks in advance.

 

[Fluff]

they're eggs

 

[Serge]

Congratulation to the new parent.

8)

 

[phat742]

yeah those are eggs. mine have done that tons of times and i've only got one baby snail out of it.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I thought so. Now is raising baby cerinths a profitable endeavor and is there anything that I can do encourage the survival of the young. Since I was not expecting them to reproduce, I am completely clueless as to the develpmental stages of a snail. A link or some info would help.

 

[got bait?]

Babies will most likely get consumed, chopped up, or filtered out. All you can do is have plenty of LS and LR for them to hide in for a while. They won't get out of hand or be enough to make it profitable. Just save you a little money and give you a little fun as well. Nassarius snail reproduce pretty good in home aquaria as well.

 

[steve-s]

Cerith snails have a planktonic stage as do most marine snails. The likelihood of something resulting from egg layers/spawn scatterer's will be slim to nil in the home aquarium.

About the only ones you might have success with are certain Strombus species which do not have a planktonic stage.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well, they're all gone now, I guess they were probably eaten. Still, it was interesting to see and now I know for the future. Thanks for the info.