r/Aquariums • u/otterboi123 • May 28 '24

Begging for snails Saltwater/Brackish

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1.9k Upvotes

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Okay care to explain what species can or cannot for a newer person? Thats what op wanted and what I did my best to provide them with. Everything i have read so far says nerites can be acclimated to any salinity and the eggs only hatch in brackish water. And if you always have fresh snails it does not matter if their lifespan is shortened a bit (think raising shrimp temp to make them reproduce faster, but also shortening the lifespan)

Its best to simplify as much as possible as the way you offered your knowledge makes it seem much more intimidating than it is to find snails for brackish water.

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u/Emuwarum snailsnailsnail May 29 '24

There are like 300 species and maybe 2 (?) have ever hatched and grown to adulthood in captivity. It is just not achievable for the average person.

I'll just u/AmandaDarlingInc , she is actually researching how to breed them in a lab and can probably explain it better.

4

u/Bammalam102 May 29 '24

I doubt there are people wildly picking every nerite that is in a tank except for two right now but i do not know enough about them. Im currently reading this:

“I’m a biologist and this is my first attempt breeding nerite snails. Has been a long journey, full of patience, but everything is going as planned. I started by acclimating freshwater nerite snails into brackish water. Long process, but successful. After that they started breeding and a few months later the capsules start hatching. Now, I have thousands of larvae swimming all around and a few hundreds extremely small snails. Here are some videos and photos. I would like to know what you think about it and if you have any suggestions. From what I understand everybody says it’s impossible.” On fishlore.com

I mean op should just do research until they are certain about everything before doing anything but nerite snails are a good lead to start on

2

u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

"I doubt there are people wildly picking every nerite that is in a tank except for two right now but i do not know enough about them."

Correct, you do not know enough about them. Neritids are largely wild caught, enough that unless I'm speaking to someone else about a specific species I say ALL neritids are wild caught. You can breed some of the Theodoxus genus in captivity but they don't breed readily enough to support the trade so they're still also largely wild caught. I don't specialize in the marine species but I do keep some of them and to the best of my understanding and observation, even they have a difficult time coming out of the veliger stage so they are wild caught as well.

“I’m a biologist and this is my first attempt breeding nerite snails". It's been days so maybe you've see it already, if not I hate to disappoint (only a little bit sorry because I am pretty tired of seeing that fishlore thread so I'll be brutally honest...) he didn't do it. When you get to the bottom there you'll notice he kinda stops responding and as it turns out... he didn't pull it off. I think my comments are even still in there. I lurked on fishlore when I was but a baby malacologist.

That being said, if you really like the subject you can join us over in r/snailbreeding and r/AquaticSnails I don't have a ton of context for this post but I've responded where I was tagged. I run a lab dedicated to the captive husbandry of the family Neritidae and my publishings go there first.

2

u/Emuwarum snailsnailsnail Jun 01 '24

.... it's kinda weird that twice I've called you to help explain to someone why you can't just plop neritids in brackish and breed them, and both times they've responded rudely.

3

u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

It is SO weird because it only happens over here haha I guess I should have read the rest of the thread maybe? Did I miss some sensitive context somewhere?

Part of me sort of gets the immediate disbelieve that they're all wild caught because they're so readily available and they're relatively cheap... but no one in the store is gonna tell you that only a fraction of them successfully acclimate. They're harvested en masse, trafficked cheaply and sold as a commodity.

0

u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

I forsure do not know enough about them but i for sure do not want to learn from you. Glass half empty kinda person

1

u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

I don't know what the two have to do with each other... unless there's a neritid in the glass? In which case the extra climbing space above the water line makes sense... they love that actually...

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u/Bammalam102 Jun 01 '24

Im just saying you sound pretty negative but i do appreciate the information. I would rather head about what does work instead of what does not. A quick “hey that wont work but this will and heres how” sounds like a sentence a “glass half full” person would say.

Edit: also the wording should be “they have not figured out how to breed in captivity yet” not it cannot be done.

2

u/AmandaDarlingInc Neritidae Snientist Jun 01 '24

I'm not a cup of water. I'm a snail scientist.