# Worms in snail eggs?



## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

SO today I got impatient and broke open my third attempt at breeding snails. The first clutch i didn't see any shells except for one, but I wasn't really looking I just broke it open and swished it around in the water. The second one I noticed smelled kinda funny, and I also noticed a tiny black worm crawling on my finger.. wtf? I flushed this one because I did not want to infect the other one IF it was sucessful.

so yeah... what were the worms and why do my snail eggs never hatch on their own?


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## Destinystar (May 26, 2012)

Yikes I dont like worms and have no idea. Have you checked the pH of your water that could have something to with it. I have some babies I got on some plants and I checked my pH cause I read that it needs to be over 7 which mine is. Wishes you good luck, snails are cute and the tiny baby ones are adorable ! I am so hoping mine do well ! Right now I have them in a half gallon bowl along with the live plants.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

Ph is above 7 :/


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## Sakura8 (May 12, 2011)

A worm? Are you sure it came from the snail clutch? Sure it wasn't some kind of . . . aquatic slug? Gosh, wish I could help you with this one but I dunno. I can only guess that one of the eggs went bad and got parasites?


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

hmm :/ thats what I was thinking but idk, has this ever happened to u guys before


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## PaintingPintos (Dec 27, 2011)

Well, anything wiggling like a worm most certainly does not belong there. Neither do slugs. As far as I'm concerned, slugs do not live in water. They are too soft-bodied and have no protective shell....much too easy to acquire parasites without the use of poisons or bright, flashy colors.
Do you feed Blackworms to your snails? Well....it sounds far-fetched as I think you would recognize, but blackworms CAN eat baby snails and snail eggs.
That is a disgusting parasite you have, though.
It does not sound like a baby snail, at all.
Can you give us more info on the worm?
How big was it?
What was the water temp?
How fast was the worm moving? Frantically like an earthworm, or slow like a turtle after being flipped on its shell?
Anything else is greatly appreciated.

PS I feel like a detective xD


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

Lol tiny tiny like maybe as long as an egg is across, and not as frantic as an earthworm but not as slow as a turtle. I forget the water temp lol and no i don;t feed blackworms.


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## PaintingPintos (Dec 27, 2011)

Pogthefish said:


> Lol tiny tiny like maybe as long as an egg is across, and not as frantic as an earthworm but not as slow as a turtle. I forget the water temp lol and no i don;t feed blackworms.


Eeeeeeeeeew x__________________________________x
Yucky little things.
Also, were the worms fat? Or were they skinny?
I'm still trying to find out what the heck they were....


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## TheCrabbyTabby (Jul 7, 2012)

Okay, I saw you've wanted to hatch out apple snails and haven't been able to do so successfully yet. So, I'll tell ya what I did to get little baby snails (you can skip ahead if you already know what I am about to detail in the next couple of paragraphs).

Well, first, you need a male and a female apple/mystery snail to start off with. Yes, in the apple/mystery snail world, there are two separate genders. The male will climb aboard a receptive female, mate and leave to find other females to mate with. That's his job. He's done with the reproduction process and plays no further part. 

The female then climbs to a suitable surface above the water and lays her clutch. If there are no males around and she is full of eggs, she'll still lay them, even though they are not viable. When I first had gold mystery snails, I would just leave the egg clutches where they were and let nature do its thing. Some people remove them with a razor blade (yes, some eggs will break when removing them but you've got 100-200 potential babies in a clutch so its really not a loss), wrap them up in a moist paper towel, and place that wrapped bundle in a plastic baggy. They then place the baggy, with a few holes in it for curculation, in a warm spot (like on top of a desktop computer's tower or something). Some just place the egg clutch in the paper towel and in a small plastic Ziploc container and let that float on the surface of the tank water. Meh, to each his own I guess.

It takes about 1-3 weeks of incubation (depending on your air temp/humidity) and then the babies will begin to eat their way out of their individual eggs, and drop themselves down to the water below. If you've removed the egg clutch, then you'll have to manually dump the babies in the water. Its imperative that the clutch not get too dry, to warm, or too wet during incubation. 

Its really not that hard, though it seems like it, and once you've got the hang of it, you'll be up to your eyeballs in snail babies in no time.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

I always do it right, but they never hatch! I know how to breed them  thye have stopped laying eggs though, so I think its time to buy a new pair.


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## Silverfang (Mar 25, 2011)

it is possible the eggs simply were not viable.


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## TheCrabbyTabby (Jul 7, 2012)

Okay. Did some research on your behalf. Sometimes flies will lay their eggs among the snail eggs, even in home aquariums. It could be a maggot of some sort that you saw.

I also wonder if the eggs weren't viable. Maybe your current snails are not genetically capable of reproducing. I second your idea of getting new ones if you want to breed them.

If you haven't allready, check out www.applesnail.net for any helpful info. I found it an invaluable resource for snail knowledge.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

Well I saw one little snail shell in the first clutch I saw but I tried to ick it up and accidentally buried it under the gravel D: but at first I thought the were not compatible too. idk I haven't seen any other shells.


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## Bambi (Sep 11, 2011)

I'm not sure what young rat lungworms look like, but don't apple snails have a chance to ccarry them? some of the google picks make it look black? maybe that's the issue?

I just glanced at the website linked and they mentioned worms so...~shrugs~. Best of luck though.


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## Pogthefish (Mar 24, 2012)

*shrugs* oh well


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