Baby snail infestation!

S

Spar

Premium Member
I have literally thousands of baby snails covering my rocks, coral, etc. Look like Nerite (sp?) snails. Eggs are everywhere as well...

Am I SOL on this? I don't want to add a fish that has a taste for snails to protect my adult snails, but am leaning toward rather having none at all if I am going to experience this all the time.

Are they doing any harm that I am not considering? Other than disturbing my coral, which appear to be doing alright regardless.
 
Any pics? The may not be baby snails. There are Collonista snails that stay tiny & are beneficial, and there are Pyramidellid snails that are directly harmful to snails & clams. There are also Rissoid snails that look almost exactly like the Pyramidellid that are not harmful.

If they are hatched snails or Collonistas, the population will wane with lack of food.
 
I will take some pics tonight. They tend to come out in greater numbers right after my MH's turn off. They are tiny, round and white shelled if that helps assess pre-picture.
 
Here is as good as my camera will allow. I searched for Collonistas' and they do look very similar markings-wise. Below as well are the eggs i figured they were coming from... Nerite, right?

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Wow I had those all over my tank at one time. Why do they not hatch? I wouldn't have thought those were eggs.
 
@SushiGirl wrote:
Yep said:
I took a better look tonight under the moon lights and they are definitely Collonistas'. Same pattern as the ones on Marc's ID page. So freak'n many of them though! I am sure glad they are nocturnal or would never see through the front glass pane!
Click to expand...
 
The collonista population will subside after a while, there's usually a boom early on. Oddly enough, I only ever saw one in my 55...ever LOL.
As for the eggs, I'll just quote John from ReefCleaners from another thread on RC:

"They hatch, it is just that both species have prolonged larval states and starve or become pump/fish casualities. Dwarf ceriths have reproduced in our tanks, just not that well. Out of a patch of eggs you may get a handful, but they are successful sometimes, keep an eye out for little black dots crawling around. I have heard the intertidal thing too, but I think it might depend on which species of nerite. There are many nerite species and they live in different environments. Yours are Antillean nerites, I very rarely see their eggs above the low tide line. When they hatch the top of the egg opens up and you have a ring where the egg used to be for a few days and then the remainder will dissolve. "
 
@SushiGirl wrote:
Yep said:
I'm glad I saw this post. For a long time now I kept meaning to try to get a picture to upload so that I could ask someone what those spots were all over one of my rocks. That answered it for me!
Click to expand...
 
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