Snail Eggs?

[bdhough]

I have three round waterspot looking packets on my thermometer. Each packet has 5 or 6 eggs in them. I've seen them before in our coral tanks at work and so i took some of the critters in the tanks home hoping to do the same. I'm just curious as to if they are snail eggs or half shell nudibranch eggs.... OR maybe intertidal limpets??? I have dove shell snails and half shell nudibranches each and the limpets. I really hope they are the dove shell snails though. Any experience in seeing these??

 

[bang guy]

Tuff to tell without a pic but it sounds like the egg capsules of Strombus maculatus aka Spotted Conch aka Strombus Grazer.

 

[bdhough]

you may be right. I swear i may have taken one or two of those out of the coral tanks. I'm going based off of sprungs book and while some of the snails i took look like the Euplica(dove shells) i could swear some do look like the strombus. Granted they aren't very big right now. Maybe a half a centemeter max size right now. I guess we'll see in a couple days/weeks....

 

[bdhough]

If you never see the babies then its probably something eating them or maybe they get sucked into filtration.... I don't know your tank though. I have 2 green chromis in the tank. Its also a 12 gallon tank so i have a limited number of predators. The only thing that may eat them would be the hermits i have and they can't mountain climb glass walls yet. I'm going to keep my eye on them and hopefully ill see something. If i can isolate whoever is doing it i COULD try and breed them....

 

[bdhough]

When they hatch, and i'm basing this on other reproduction cycles, they go to the top and float and that in turn sweeps them away. The bristle worms would probably eat them if they could catch them. My only guess though is they get swept away somehow. My other guess is of the millions of eggs laid in the wild only a select few make it as well....Apply that to your tank. I don't know. Ill cross my fingers though. I'm sure an isolation process would help them to survive. If you have the desire.

 

[bdhough]

Just and update it is the dove shell snails that are laying the eggs. Its the Euplica type..... I think..... It definitely does not look like a strombus type. One is laying an egg as I write this.

 

[bdhough]

I wish i did. The base of his foot is attatched to the egg and there is another egg about 2 inches below the one he seems to be laying right now. Do you have any idea how small the strombus can lay eggs? I really think its a dove shell snail out of sprungs book based on his description. I dunno. The Canon G3 is on my graduation list
EDIT: do you know how big all the strombus get? Do they all get giant sized?

 

[bdhough]

Well thats what the sac is. I guess i have this perception that all the strombus are huge and would need to be bigger before reproducing. This guy is barely past half an inch.

 

[bdhough]

I saw that post but this guy is cream colored with what looks like brownish greenish markings, could be algae build up. Yours looked alot darker than that.
Either way im happy about it. I have a bunch of these guys in my 12 gallon and if they stay small its perfect.

 

[bdhough]

If you ever come to fish pro's in raleigh ask for brian h. Ill show them to you

 

[bdhough]

Well. Bad news. If you do go I just got fired . Not sure why yet. So I won't be able to be there to show you. Look in the coral tanks though. You'll probably see a few of the snails crawling around. Fish Pros is alot smaller stock wise than fish world. Alot more pond stuff as well. As far as price goes they are a bit more expensive too. She marks up the price on everything 100% as i'm sure most lfs do. If you get a chance talk to Bryan Peterson. He takes care of the 120 reef in the store. Its purely SPS (well mostly) but its about as perfect a tank as you can get. He knows his stuff though and will also sell some of the frags out of the tank if you ask him about them. If you can go by there on a tuesday or thursday night.....

 

[bdhough]

Yeah... Me too. They gave me a bunch of bull reasons. Something about a 90 probationary period but never mind i've been working there for more than 15 weeks. Apparently theres a list of things i did which DOES NOT include theft of any kind but i had no warning what so ever. Go figure.
If you are looking for stock go to fish world. If you are looking for someone cool to talk about reefs with then go to fish pros and talk to that guy. He also keeps a 125 reef at home which is equally as stunning. BTW he works every Sunday as well.....