Nassarius Snail Babies?

[Tennyson]

Hello everyone, so my two nasa snails lay eggs quite often, and I think some eggs hatched and survived? well not some but A TON.

I was just wondering what the survival rate of these were. Mine have been alive for about two or three months now and seem to be growing. I read however that their survival rate was low. But will they grow up to adults? Will have pics later

 

[pagojoe]

If they all look like little snails crawling around, there's no reason they wouldn't survive, other than lack of food. Occasionally someone actually ends up with a bunch of baby Nassarius in a tank, but probably more than 90% of the time the babies are some other type of snail. It will be interesting to see the pics, maybe you are one of the lucky ones.

Cheers,




Don

 

[iamwhatiam52]

Don,

What is it about the life cycle of Nassarius that makes it so unlikely for them to make it to the baby snail stage in a tank?

Can a small system be set up that would be more favorable to their survival?

 

[JDMhoes]

can someone provide a photo of this?

 

[evsalty]

Survival all depends on the tank mates. If you have had them survive this long and I suspect that they are now crawling on the rocks more so then the glass then you have a great chance for high survival until the food supply runs out. I only buy the super Tongas yet now and then I see tiny nass's surfacing so I know that they have reproduced. Right now I am going thru this with my Black Turbos more so then my Nass's. Again it all depends on predation in the beginning.

 

[pagojoe]

Nassarius snails have a comparatively long planktonic period, where the veligers float in the water column. Some other snails are direct developers, and some such as trochids and turbinids have compartively very short planktonic periods. The shorter the time spent in the water column before settling, the more likely that the young will survive. To have Nassarius reproduce in your tank, you have to have the correct flow and not enough microfiltering to catch all the veligers, and you have to have a source of food for the tiny animals from the time they start feeding until they are large enough for you to see them crawling around, acting like small adults. It's tricky to set up the correct conditions, but it's been done for quite a few species, even ones that have extended pelagic periods. In a home aquarium, it mostly boils down to luck.

Cheers,



Don

 

[evsalty]

Nassarius snails have a comparatively long planktonic period, where the veligers float in the water column. Some other snails are direct developers, and some such as trochids and turbinids have compartively very short planktonic periods. The shorter the time spent in the water column before settling, the more likely that the young will survive. To have Nassarius reproduce in your tank, you have to have the correct flow and not enough microfiltering to catch all the veligers, and you have to have a source of food for the tiny animals from the time they start feeding until they are large enough for you to see them crawling around, acting like small adults. It's tricky to set up the correct conditions, but it's been done for quite a few species, even ones that have extended pelagic periods. In a home aquarium, it mostly boils down to luck.

Cheers,



Don

This is interesting since I have visually watched my Nass's laying the eggs then watched those same eggs hatch. The hatchlings seemed to go straight to moving across the glass. You could see them on the glass moving about. Then a month or two later I would see less on the glass and more on the rock with shells starting to take shape. Again though these are the Super Tongans so perhaps it is a bit different then the small versions.

 

[Tennyson]

This is interesting since I have visually watched my Nass's laying the eggs then watched those same eggs hatch. The hatchlings seemed to go straight to moving across the glass. You could see them on the glass moving about. Then a month or two later I would see less on the glass and more on the rock with shells starting to take shape. Again though these are the Super Tongans so perhaps it is a bit different then the small versions.

Yeah same here, I think mine hatched and started crawling around right after. I might have the super tongans as well but I'm not sure. Will be back with pics soon.

 

[pagojoe]

Here's an interesting thread for you guys:

http://www.reefland.com/forum/reef-aquariums/26102-nassarius-snails-compatible.html

The planktonic stage length may vary with the temperature, but all the species that I can find info on show a length of several weeks to a couple of months. I found a hint that there may be a related species or two with a shorter planktonic period, but I couldn't access the articles. I'll see if I can find some specific info for you guys.

As an example, Nassarius pauperatus is known to have a planktonic stage of at least 21 days at 26 degrees C.

Cheers,




Don

 

[iamwhatiam52]

Do newly settled Nassarius live in the sand like the mature snails? My adults climb the glass when they smell food, but I've NEVER seen them on rock.

 

[pagojoe]

They probably settle all over the place, then the ones that find something to eat survive, whether it's initially on the rocks or in the sand. At some point they start depending on the sand for shelter, but I'm not sure how big they'd have to be. They probably have the ability to detect food when they are tiny, though, so I'd guess they go wherever it smells best.

Back to the veliger topic, I couldn't find specific info on the Giant Tongan Nassarius (most of the ones sold under this name are Nassarius arcularius), but found one reference that said it was "thought" that the planktonic period for that species is about four weeks. If one of you guys could actually document direct development in that species, there would be a lot of people who'd like to know about it. The most common scenario is that the snail eggs turn out to be another direct-developing, non-Nassarius species, though.

Cheers,




Don

 

[evsalty]

Don- perhaps the planktonic stage IS the 4 weeks that I see them on the glass without shells. Like I said above I watched the eggs being deposited and then about a week later I would see the eggs broken and little tiny things all over the glass. There never seems to be a free floating stage like you are suggesting. Once they start to develope shells is when they move to the rocks.

 

[pagojoe]

Possibly. Maybe many of them do flutter off into the water, and some stay behind, stuck to the glass, I don't know. The egg capsules supposedly contain from around 40 to several hundred veligers each, potentially large enough for you to see with the naked eye. The little microshells included on the new veligers would be tiny though.

The third pic down on this link shows a veliger of Nassarius reticulatus. Is that what the new hatchlings look like in your tank?

http://www.sportesport.it/plancton06.htm

The article below looks to have some excellent info, but since you either have to pay a lot of money to access it or have a subscription (and I don't wanna, and don't have), I'll just have to go with the info included in the intro. In this day and age of cheap memory and broad internet access, it almost seems like an anachronism to have these companies store and charge so much for access to theses, dissertations, and journal excerpts. Maybe that will change soon, and everyone will have free access to the info included in these papers. But for now:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1540388

Cheers,



Don

 

[evsalty]

I wish we COULD read more of that article. The egg period matches mine at 1 week then they break thru the sacks and start on with life. When this happens all 4 sides of my tank glass are covered in these little guys for about 1 month. My tank is a 6' 125g so there ARE hundreds of them on the glass during that time. As for how they look, they look very similar to the adults with a round head side and a forked tail side just no shell and about the size of #2 pencil led ( well at least for the first couple of days ). When this has happend for me before I only had my crappy Blackberry camera phone so the pics never came out and now that I have a pretty decent camera they have not laid any eggs.

 

[chevyz2801]

I just put 200 nassarius snails in my 125 and 2 weeks latter have eggs well think they are eggs all over the right side of tank and some rocks.

 

[SparseReef]

I haven't read it yet, but I have a copy of the Pechenik article. Send me a pm if you want a copy.

 

[TheH]

pagojoe, evsalty: If you know anyone still in college, they can most likely read the articles. I used to read jstor all the time for homework in college.

 

[Koa Mali]

My giant tongan(?) nassarius just lay eggs today. Here they are.

 

[Nebthet]

I hope the eggs hatch for you. I have great success with babies in my tank. At all times I have at least 4 adults, 8 juveniles about the size of a pencil eraser and 8-10 super small just a bit larger than a pin head size. They have been self sustaining like this for over a year now which is really nice, but I am not sure where they are laying the eggs because I never see them on the glass or rocks.

 

[coraldonny]

Nassarius eggs

Nassarius eggs

YEA!! MY NASSARIUS IS LAYING EGGS LIKE CRAZY, THERE HAS TO BE AT LEAST 1000. IVE ADDED SOME PICTURES AND WOULD LIKE ANYONE THAT KNOWS AND CAN HELP ME THREW THIS I'll be documenting the progress every other day till they hatch and hopefully this will be vital information on how the eggs survive, what not to do and so on.:rollface::spin1: