Stomatellas / Shieldsnails Mating Ritual?

britestar101

New member
So I walked past my BioCube 14 and the coolest thing just happened. I have at least 2 large white and 1 large and 1 small black Stomatellas / Shieldsnails in my tank and one of the larger white ones was upright on its tail, its front up in the air and it was expelling a cloud of dust. It did it 4 or 5 times. I scanned the tank and 3 others were out on top of the rocks in the light and each took turns doing the same thing. After they each expelled a few clouds they would go back to being flat on the rock and then each disappeared back into bottom and dark of the tank.

Has anyone else seen this before? I'm thinking that there will be baby snails everywhere soon.

My tank's temp right now is 80.9 degrees if that makes a difference. It just has the stock PC lighting.
 
Last week I started noticing baby stomatellas / shieldsnails so I think this is what you should watch out for if you want babies. It doesn't seem to take very long for the babies to start showing up. ~1.5 months.

They are so cute and tiny, only about .5cm in length.
The adults range from 1.5-2.5cm in length.
 
Here is a pic of 3 of the adults and one baby. I mentioned the white and black/red colors of the shieldsnail's shells before, the baby pictured has a zigzag pattern of white and black/red on its shell so we will have to see if that changes in time.

<img src="http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv236/britestar101/ShieldsnailBaby.jpg?t=1244076402">
 
I have a ton of these breeding in some of my tanks....mostly higher temps like you 81F. THey are a great cleanup crew. ;)
 
I saw one of mine doing this maybe a week or so again. I am hoping I get more of them soon, they love the algae and my cleaner shrimp love eating them!
 
I just found this on an ebay listing,
"Stomatellids reproduce readily in systems which is surprising since they’re “free-spawners”. Reproduction takes place by way of the male climbing up onto a rock, stretching up, and releasing sperm in what looks like trails of smoke into the water. This triggers the female to release a jelly-like mass of eggs. Apparently, after a very short period of time, the embryos develop into free-swimming, non-feeding larvae (aka“veligers”) . After a few days, they descend out of the water column and settle onto the substrate, looking like miniature versions of their parents. I can only guess that their success in reproduction must be tied to the short development from embryo to “snail”. Not surprisingly, these snails mature early as well, reportedly from around a month to 6 weeks so that no doubt also has an impact on their success rate. "

If anyone is interested in buying a few from me, they are big enough to find easily, how does $2 each sound? Size would be like a 1/4 of an inch. They are growing fast.
 
Back
Top