My Nassarius Snails Bred!

[teddscau]

Holy fudge guys, I can't believe it. I was planning on setting up a special tank to try to breed the nassarius snails in, but when I was feeding the fish this evening, I spotted to of my snails mating (one had its reproductive ear tube thingy jammed in another snail's face). Then, low and behold, I looked over to the centre of the tank and I saw a 1.5"“2cm snail zooming out for some food. He has that "sniffer" tube that nassarius snails have, a similar shell, eyes right at the base of his antennas, a "trapdoor" that he carries around near the back of his foot, and he buries himself in the sand with his "sniffer" sticking out. His little stiffer is so tiny! It's only a few millimetres long.

Anyways, for the past couple of months I've been noticing what appeared to be large pyramid snails wandering around the tank (they obviously weren't since they weren't sucking on other snails), and I thought they were either a new species that had magically appeared in my tank (I thoroughly inspect and quarantine all new corals, so unlikely), or that they were baby nassarius snails. Well, I guess it turns out they're the latter.

 

[teddscau]

Oops, guess this should've gone in the "Other Invertebrates" section. Meh, snails are molluscs too.

 

[ChronicReefH2o]

I don't like long snore snails, they tend to kill off other snails in the tank and limits you from keeping clams. These guys will eat clams from the inside out.

 

[teddscau]

Hmm? These are nassarius snails. They don't bother my other inhabitants. Although what you said piqued my interest, and it turns out they might actually nibble on clams as you said. Anyways, i removed my clam because it isn't bright enough in the display, so I have him chilling in my frag tank (he started growing within a week thanks to the strong light over the frag tank).

Anyways, I try to keep everyone in my display tank well fed, including my cleanup crew. My cleanup crew tends to "rampage" if they don't get enough to eat, and start throwing my frags everywhere -_-. Well, mainly my Halloween hermit crab. Anyways, thanks for the heads up! I'm actually trying to come up with a perch to hang near the surface of the tank so that my crocea can get enough light once he's healthy enough to go back in the display.

 

[Glennkaufman]

I can’t stop these guys from breeding!!!

 

[griss]

That’s awesome. Tell us a bit more how you’re getting them to breed

 

[griss]

Also, great pics. What phone/camera did you take those with?

 

[Glennkaufman]

That’s awesome. Tell us a bit more how you’re getting them to breed

A little Barry White playing while the lights go low………... Seriously, I have no clue man. I started with one as a hitchhiker in 2021. Now, every time I feed, hundreds come out from the sand. I’ve never noticed egg sacs. But I have very tiny ones all over the place. So I know they are hatching somewhere. I do run the moonlight phase on my AI Prime 16HD’s. Maybe that has something to do with the breeding.

Photos were taken with an iPhone 13 Pro. No filter.