Kurt_Nelson
Aquarium Advice Addict
OK... I know we've had threads here about snails putting out what appears to be smoke from under their shell. I've seen it with one of my snails before too. But I finally caught the whole spawning episode this afternoon. Pretty amazing stuff - like the Nature Channel right in front of my couch.
I'd noticed my water was a little cloudy this afternoon, so I went over to investigate. I found one lone trochus up on the highest rock, "smoking" away. As I watched him excrete what I assumed was sperm over, and over, and over... both my wife and I were saying "Sheesh guy... give it a rest! Where are you storing all that stuff!"
My 6-year old then says, "Dad... that one over there is doing it too." And wouldn't you know it, one of the snails on the other side of the tank was doing it too. Hmmm... this is weird. Then we spy another one doing it.
As I look around more, I find one trochus up near the top of the glass also excreting stuff from under its shell... but this isn't a milky looking substance. It's releasing a ton of tiny little spheres. "Ohhhhh!", we all say in unison... "Those are the eggs!" I could not believe the amount of eggs this thing was cranking out. It was just as impressive as the amount of sperm being released. So at this point, we had one trochus releasing eggs, and at least 4 trochus in various parts of the tank releasing sperm. I'm guessing that the egg release prompted the sperm release from all the guys, but I suppose it could've been the other way around too. Either way, it was pretty interesting to watch in real time!
This isn't the first time this has happened in my tank, but it was the first time I witnessed it to this extent. My trochus are fairly prolific... I have three generations that I know of in my tank right now (at least I *think* I still have one of the first generations still around) and I've only had the tank up for a year and a half!
Anyway... just thought I'd share. Pretty amazing stuff going on in these little world's of ours!
I'd noticed my water was a little cloudy this afternoon, so I went over to investigate. I found one lone trochus up on the highest rock, "smoking" away. As I watched him excrete what I assumed was sperm over, and over, and over... both my wife and I were saying "Sheesh guy... give it a rest! Where are you storing all that stuff!"
My 6-year old then says, "Dad... that one over there is doing it too." And wouldn't you know it, one of the snails on the other side of the tank was doing it too. Hmmm... this is weird. Then we spy another one doing it.
As I look around more, I find one trochus up near the top of the glass also excreting stuff from under its shell... but this isn't a milky looking substance. It's releasing a ton of tiny little spheres. "Ohhhhh!", we all say in unison... "Those are the eggs!" I could not believe the amount of eggs this thing was cranking out. It was just as impressive as the amount of sperm being released. So at this point, we had one trochus releasing eggs, and at least 4 trochus in various parts of the tank releasing sperm. I'm guessing that the egg release prompted the sperm release from all the guys, but I suppose it could've been the other way around too. Either way, it was pretty interesting to watch in real time!
This isn't the first time this has happened in my tank, but it was the first time I witnessed it to this extent. My trochus are fairly prolific... I have three generations that I know of in my tank right now (at least I *think* I still have one of the first generations still around) and I've only had the tank up for a year and a half!
Anyway... just thought I'd share. Pretty amazing stuff going on in these little world's of ours!
