Reproducing

[firewill65]

So a few weeks ago, I witnessed my 2 emerald crabs taking care of business....one of my cleaner shrimp has eggs on her. ...and now I've found many baby snails all over the place. I have a few questions

Emerald Crabs & Cleaner Shrimp...What should I look for if babies are born? How long are they carried for?

Snails...will they survive? WHAT IF they ALL survive?????

Does this mean my tank is doing well?

[mndfreeze]

This is a sign tank is doing well. Shrimp and crabs will generally not survive. Most people fail when dedicating entire set ups trying to raise the fry. Some snails seem to breed well on their own, others have more issues. However they generally will not over breed due to food limitations, going dormant (ceriths), getting eaten by other stuff, etc.

[firewill65]

Update...these snails are growing crazy fast and apparently I have 2 different types that reproduced. I'll try and get pics but they are very small. One type is a round shell that is has brown and white stripes. The other is a darker shell but is long and very pointed like a cone. I've seen probably a hundred of each...is this normal? I keep flashing back to the guy on here that had an outbreak of starfish. I guess time will tell...maybe I can sell them to a lfs when they get bigger. In the meantime, my tank is going to get pretty clean!

[JamesBryan]

I raised several species of freshwater snails as feeders in the past. It was necessary to do large volume water changes to dilute a hormone they produced that inhibited reproduction. I guess it was a way of controlling popultion in the wild so food would not become scarce. Perhaps they will decline on their own? I am sure there are FOWLR folks that would love some feeder snails for their fish.

[olemiss reb]

Hundreds of tiny round and cone shaped snails sounds like collonista and pyramid snails. Both can reproduce like crazy given ample food supply.

[Michelle S]

Hundreds of tiny round and cone shaped snails sounds like collonista and pyramid snails. Both can reproduce like crazy given ample food supply.

I got six snails two days ago and two of them were attached to each other. They didn't let go until this morning. One of them kept dragging the other around and over a larger empty snail/hermit shell. Then I thought the one snail that stayed with the empty shell snail was smothering as it was pushed under by my annoying pistol shrimp.

I thought I'd save it by unburying it and found what looks like a string of snail eggs.

I wonder if they'll hatch or get eaten... hopefully this photo shows what I mean.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=3940&pictureid=35665