Micro Strombus snails, can they overbreed to become a pest?

[ReeferKimberly]

I don't really know the proper name for these. I have heard them called dove snails. They look like this.

I really like them but I recently noticed they are laying A LOT of eggs.

Each of these sacs has 5-10 eggs and I have at least 40 snails of various size. Should I start selling adults/destroying eggs? Just over the past month they have been laying huge amounts of eggs. They only get to about 1/2 inch as adults....but they are adding up. Should I be concerned?

 

[clay12340]

I had a similar problem with limpets in my nano tanks. It got way out of hand to the point that manual removal became a pretty annoying task. My problem was overfeeding, and I assume whatever type of algae was growing was something they really loved.

My best guess would be that you've got an abundant food supply of whatever they are eating. Are you having algae problems? Maybe if you lower your nutrients a little more whatever they're feeding on would slow down and their breeding would as well.

 

[Nembo]

The population will reach a critical level.It really depends on the algae available for them to feed on and how many snails it can support.Other clean up crew with the same feeding habits will also limit the numbers.I quite like this little snail as it is reefsafe and can keep a tank nice and clean when in large numbers.

 

[Betta132]

Most small, readily-breeding animals have the potential to become a problem. The key is to limit their food levels. What's going to happen is they'll breed until they run out of food, then they'll start to die off. When you see that they don't have any food, you could pull a bunch of larger ones out and sell them, preventing a die-off.
I'd suggest you scoop out some adults now and then to sell. Those are kind of pretty, I bet you could sell them to people who want small algae-eaters... Plus, if somebody had something that ate snails, these would be useful since they breed.