Cerith snails larvae feeding

[pszemol]

Recently I got a dozen of Cerithium atratum snails from http://www.reeftopia.com/cerith_snail.htm and a couple of days ago some of them lay eggs on the glass of my fish tank.
Because I like to experiment with biology very much I decided to play with them a little.
I moved eggs into a separate container filled with the tank water and bubbling airline and yesterday evening I noticed a cloud of white dots in the water column.
I checked under my toy microscope and they look under 200x like miniature snail shells floating in the water. They move in circular motion, similar to rotifers, aparently filtering something from the water.
I have added some green algae to color the water a little bit but I am not sure if they will like the nanochloropsis algae from DT-phytoplankton.

Here is question for you, dr Ron: what is the best food for planktonic snail larvae like cerith larvae I am trying to feed? What chances do I have to keep them alive to metamorphose and later?

 

[pszemol]

I would like to report, that several further eggs laying were unsuccesful. I gave up on the "project".

To my surprise, recently I have disassembled DSB sump where 12 ceriths were living and moved live sand to a new 58 gallons RR Oveanic tank with 3 bags of "dead" sand (Southdown). Couple of days later I have noticed miniature cerith-looking snails. White shells with slight darker markings, couple of milimeters long. They behave like ceriths: feed on sand, dig in sand, climb on glass, rock... with characteristic drag on their "heavy" shells.

I do not have good microscope to take good pictures, but I will observe them growing - will see what happens. There are tenths if not hundreds of them in the tank.

The old sump was running disconnected from the main tank after my December algae infestation (main tank has been decomissioned). The sump was kept alive with one MiniJet 400 pump, heater and limited illumination. I guess it was enough for the Nature do her thing and snails multiplied themselves, without my help

 

[ho bag]

I noticed a baby cerith snail making its way across the front of my glass as well the other day. Never say any eggs but there obviously doign better without my help anyway!

 

[reverendmaynard]

I have copious quantities of baby ceriths, some now almost full grown. This surprised me, since I never saw any eggs, and was under the impression they would not grow to maturity succesfully without extraoridinary measures. At first I thought they were the dreaded pyramids!

I started with an order of 25, of which somewhere near half died quickly, and now have at least a hundred, from 1/4" and up.

I also have tons of the collumbelids sold by IPSF as strombus snails. Theses were not so surprising since they lay the eggs on the glass, and there is no free-swimming stage. Started with 6, now at least 30 full size, with many, many jeuvies.