What to do with mystery snail eggs?

I have a 20gallon high tank stocked kinda heavy now and Saturday night I saw my mystery snail laying some eggs and this morning I found another egg clutch. I really don’t know what to do with the eggs and feel kinda bad just throwing them away. The only store I know that will take them near me will only take them once they have hatched and are raised up to about the size of a dime. I don’t think my tank will be able to handle all those snails and I have nowhere else to put them. I have another 10 gallon but that one has 10 neons in them now, so I really can’t have close to 100 snails in there either. What should I do? Should I just suck it up and toss them away or should I let them hatch?

 

I allowed one clutch of eggs to mature and hatch. I destroyed all the rest of them. I ended up with 70 baby snail from that one small clutch of eggs. I know it is difficult for some folks to do that but if we allow all of them to hatch we can end up with a thousand or more snails. I kinda look at it this way. I have no problem whatsoever cracking a chicken egg. Why would doing the same thing to snail eggs be any different.

I just wrap the clutch of eggs in a paper towel, put it in a ziplock bag and crush it. Then I just throw it in the trash. Please don't toss the clutch without breaking the eggs first. We don't want to chance any hatching and ending up some where they really shouldn't be.

 

I allowed one clutch of eggs to mature and hatch. I destroyed all the rest of them. I ended up with 70 baby snail from that one small clutch of eggs. I know it is difficult for some folks to do that but if we allow all of them to hatch we can end up with a thousand or more snails. I kinda look at it this way. I have no problem whatsoever cracking a chicken egg. Why would doing the same thing to snail eggs be any different.

I just wrap the clutch of eggs in a paper towel, put it in a ziplock bag and crush it. Then I just throw it in the trash. Please don't toss the clutch without breaking the eggs first. We don't want to chance any hatching and ending up some where they really shouldn't be.

Thanks I’m gonna get rid of them now. I took one clutch off. The top layer was kind of crusty then towards the middle was a little slimey. I’m gonna wait till the second one hardens a little bit and remove it tomorrow as that one was laid last night/this morning. Then I’m just gonna raise my water level again.

 

Thanks I’m gonna get rid of them now. I took one clutch off. The top layer was kind of crusty then towards the middle was a little slimey. I’m gonna wait till the second one hardens a little bit and remove it tomorrow as that one was laid last night/this morning. Then I’m just gonna raise my water level again.

You can of course raise the water line but female mystery snails will find a way Miss Sneller laid one clutch on the front of the lid on one of my HOB filters. A lot of them were laid on the underside of the lid. She would lay them over night and I removed them each morning.

 

The strange thing is I only have 1 mystery snail. I got it around 4 months ago so I don’t know how it has eggs now. My water line is only low because I have an open top tank. I had a lot of evaporation this week. In just 4 days my water line dropped about 2-3 inches. I usually don’t tip it back off till I do a water change on fridays or saturdays. I skipped last week because my parameters were low I just didn’t too off the tank because I didn’t know what I was going to do with the eggs yet.

 

I got Miss Sneller the first part of January this year. She was about nickle size when I first got her. She started laying eggs about the middle of March. Since she was the only snail I had I didn't know if her eggs were fertile. It turns out they were. I have to think she had been with a male before she came to live with me. It may be the same for your little girl.

Since you don't have a lid on your tank if your fill the tank up she will come out of the tank to lay her eggs. She will find a way.

 

I got Miss Sneller the first part of January this year. She was about nickle size when I first got her. She started laying eggs about the middle of March. Since she was the only snail I had I didn't know if her eggs were fertile. It turns out they were. I have to think she had been with a male before she came to live with me. It may be the same for your little girl.

Since you don't have a lid on your tank if your fill the tank up she will come out of the tank to lay her eggs. She will find a way.

Initially when I saw her up at the top above the water I thought she was trying to get out. Then when I walked over and looked closer I saw her laying the eggs. It looked like her shell was getting dried out I saw gonna dribble some water on it but then I said nah let me leave her alone.

 

I have a 20gallon high tank stocked kinda heavy now and Saturday night I saw my mystery snail laying some eggs and this morning I found another egg clutch. I really don’t know what to do with the eggs and feel kinda bad just throwing them away. The only store I know that will take them near me will only take them once they have hatched and are raised up to about the size of a dime. I don’t think my tank will be able to handle all those snails and I have nowhere else to put them. I have another 10 gallon but that one has 10 neons in them now, so I really can’t have close to 100 snails in there either. What should I do? Should I just suck it up and toss them away or should I let them hatch?

This seems rough but i would crush/throw them away once you have 100+ baby snails it’s hard to get rid of them and they will grow and lay more eggs

 

This seems rough but i would crush/throw them away once you have 100+ baby snails it’s hard to get rid of them and they will grow and lay more eggs

Yes that’s what I’m afraid of. I would have loved to have them hatch and raise them up but it’s just way too big of a load for my little tank.

 

Yes that’s what I’m afraid of. I would have loved to have them hatch and raise them up but it’s just way too big of a load for my little tank.

I have the same issue there so fun to feed and watch grow but I’d hate for your tank to crash or something cause of the bio load

 

I have the same issue there so fun to feed and watch grow but I’d hate for your tank to crash or something cause of the bio load

Yea plus I’ve been wanting so bad to have some type of breeding of any sort in my tank just wasn’t ever expecting it to be my mystery snail since it is the only one in there.

 

Yea plus I’ve been wanting so bad to have some type of breeding of any sort in my tank just wasn’t ever expecting it to be my mystery snail since it is the only one in there.

Females can hold sperm for a long time so she’s probably been storing it since you got her

 

Females can hold sperm for a long time so she’s probably been storing it since you got her

Yea that stumped me I was shocked at first I thought maybe they just fill up with eggs anyway and release them when the time comes then I read it up and saw they store them for months at a time. I got her around the beginning of July I think.

 

I had to crush a clutch of eggs this morning. Miss Snellers babies are just over 7 months old now. I suspected I would start seeing eggs soon so have been on the lookout for them. Now that it has started I will probably have to remove some daily for a month or more. Miss Sneller continued laying them for about 6 weeks before she was done.