Nerite Snail Eggs Removal: Learn How To Do The Job Right - Badman's Tropical Fish (2024)

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Nerite snail eggs removal can be one of the hardest jobs as an aquarium pet owner. These eggs keep multiplying and polluting the environment of the aquarium.

Nerite snails may lay eggs all over the aquarium, but the eggs fail to get hatched in the freshwater. Today we will be discussing the ways of removing these eggs efficiently.

Nerite Snail Stats

To know how to deal with a species, it is imperative to know the statistics of that species. Let us look at the statistics of Nerite snails:

How To Get Rid of Nerite Snail Eggs?

💥 To get rid of Nerite snail eggs, most keepers recommend separating male and female snails, scraping the snail eggs so they fall to the bottom for easy disposal, or separating the female snails and letting them lay their eggs in a different tank.

Nerite snail owners use different ways to get rid of Nerite snail’s eggs. Though Nerite snails are well able to lay eggs in freshwater, it is hard to nearly impossible to hatch Nerite snail eggs in freshwater.

On top of that, it keeps multiplying, polluting the aqua environment of the aquarium for the other species. Thus, it is for the best to get rid of them.

– Separation

Though most species of snails reproduce asexually, a good factor for aquarium pet owners is that Nerite snails do not. The males need to fertilize the eggs after it is laid. To restrain Nerite snail reproduction, the females and males can be kept separately so that breeding does not occur. This is the most widely used technique. Some owners do not even choose to buy female Nerite eggs.

– Sex difference

To separate them, you need to identify the female snails from males. Their right eye antenna can differentiate them; the antenna is folded around with a muscle for males. However, it can be challenging and time-consuming to inspect like that.

Another way to differentiate is by separating one by one in a different tank and observing it for some time. The female will lay eggs; thus, you can return the females or keep them away from the community tank by using this way of differentiating. To differentiate the males from females in this way, the snails need to be at their adult stage.

If Nerite snails reproduce sexually, how will they lay eggs if quarantined alone in a tank? Well, Nerite snails can store the sperm of their mate for up to four weeks, which they can use to produce fertilized eggs throughout time.

– Scrape

Scraping is another option if you are a patient and hardworking aquarium owner. You can scrape the surface where the eggs are laid with an algae scraper, blade, or knife to get rid of snail eggs in aquarium. In this case, you need to make sure the tool you are using is stainless and new as you do not want to cause harm to your other aqua organism with oxidized iron, which will infect the water.

After you have scraped through the whole tank, the eggs will settle at the bottom. You can collect them from the bottom with a sand gravel shovel or a large spoon (make sure they are stainless as well).

Keeping Different Varieties of Nerite Snails

There are seven types of Nerite snails. They do not crossbreed and require the same living conditions. Thus keeping different varieties of Nerite snails can be an option as well. Instead of getting a couple of one type of Nerite snail, get the males of different varieties:

• Zebra Nerite snails
• Tiger Nerite snails
• Olive Nerite snails
• Horned Nerites snail
• Red Racer Nerite snails
• Checkered Nerite snails
• Marine Nerite snails

– Getting Rid of Them Completely

Though it may sound exceptionally cruel to get rid of them completely, in order to save your other aquatic pets, it could become a mandatory step for you to take. As the water polluted by Nerite snail eggs can be life-threatening for your other aquatic animals.

Return them to the pet shop: you can return the Nerite snails to the pet shop or exchange the female Nerite snails with the male ones. If the pet shop has no return policy, then you might have to take some drastic steps.

Get snail-eating fish: Instead of brutally killing them, you can shift your omnivore fish in their tank.

Usage of Copper Sulphate: If you are entirely out of any option, in that case, you can use copper sulfate. Keep in mind it can prove hazardous for your other organisms as well. Make sure to use the correct dosage and water temperature mentioned in the package. The standard dosage safe for fish is 0.15 and 0.2 mg/L.

If you don’t want to put your other aqua pets at risk, you can shift the Nerite snails into a separate tank and then mix copper sulfate in water.

When it comes to Nerite snail eggs, you need to be very calm and patient. You can commonly get the urge to shift the organisms, empty the tank and clean it with bleach and vinegar, etc., but this can put the life of all your organisms at risk. They might even end up dead.

Also, if you do have a couple of Nerite snails, the process of laying eggs all over the tank is going to be continuous. So how many times are you going to repeat this process?

The Appearance of Nerite Snail Eggs

The Nerite snail eggs are oval-shaped white dots. Each dot holds 30-100 eggs inside of it. These white dots are, in fact, the capsule holding the eggs. They appear very bright under black surfaces, especially if you have a well-decorated tank with plants and branches.

Breeding

Breeding Nerite snails does not take any extra effort. They do mate successfully, even in freshwater. Unlike most snails who reproduce asexually, Nerite snails reproduce sexually. The females lay eggs, and males need to fertilize them. Nerite snails may lay eggs in freshwater, but they fail to hatch them, thus creating pollution in your aquarium.

– Hatching

For the Nerite snail reproduction, you will have to put in a bit of extra effort. Nerite snails eggs hatching may be hard and fail a few times, but successful hatching does occur if required steps are followed carefully.

For Nerite snail eggs to hatch, a couple of parent snails should be moved in an aquarium with brackish water and let them mate. Some baby snails do hatch in freshwater as well but are born very weak and die soon. After eggs are laid and the larvae are hatched, it will take 20 to 25 days to hatch them. You can move the adult Nerite snails back to freshwater.

Feed the baby Nerite snails twice a day, thrice if necessary, but not more than that. Once they become adults, shift them with the other snails and organisms in a freshwater tank. It can take up to nine months for them to turn into adult Nerite snails. Usually, the growth of baby Nerite snails is very slow.

Some Nerite snail owners experienced hatching of Nerite snail eggs even in freshwater. They may hatch in freshwater sometimes, but the babies are born extremely weak and have malnutrition. These babies do not survive until the adult stage. Still, you might try shifting them to brackish water in case they may survive in a more suitable environment.

– Diet of Nerite Baby Snails

Baby Nerite snails are a fan of algae. The type of algae you can feed them are green spot algae, brown algae, hair algae, green dust algae, and black beard algae. If algae are not found commonly, they can be fed with spirulina powder and phytoplankton.

– Setting Up the Tank

Add salt to increase the salinity of the water and stop when the reading in your hydrometer is between 1.002-1.005. Keep the temperature between the range of 79 to 85 F (26.1 to 29.4 C).

Restrain from using any filtration or bubbler for the tank as the baby Nerite snails can get sucked by them. Avoid overcrowding the tank with too many snails. And keep the water levels lower as snails usually get out of aquariums, fall on their back, and die.

– Separate Tank

The white spot all over the tank pollutes other aquatic organisms, but some owners do like them. If you are among them, you can set up a separate tank for your Nerite snails. That way, you will not have to scrap the aquarium every day, nor will you have to be concerned about other aquatic animals.

Although they are kept in an aquarium in the first place because they are excellent algae eaters who keep the tank clean, some owners do not mind giving them a separate tank.

As you are already giving them a separate tank, consider giving them a separate tank with brackish water. Thus they will build up their own community. However, it can be hazardous as well if the tank gets overcrowded.

Lifespan and Proper Care

Nerite snails do not live more than one year. Some even die within a week after adding to the community tank, which can be because of stress.

Nerite snails do not require extreme care. They are peaceful organisms who lie at a corner of the tank or sliming around without troubling anyone. But it is often seen that Nerite snails ended up being the dinner of bigger and aggressive fish when added to the tank with others. Thus it is better to keep them around friendly and peaceful small fish.

Tank Mates

Nerite snails are small, calm, and peaceful creatures. It is better to avoid keeping them with bigger aqua organisms than them as they can easily become prey. Some ideal Nerite snail tank mates are tetras, gouramis, bettas, guppies, shrimps, and other varieties of Nerite snails.

Conclusion

The followings are some necessary keypoints from this article that may help you with the job:

• Nerite snails are attractive-looking peaceful creatures.
• They will help you keep the tank clean as they are algae-eating snails. A common problem arises when it comes to Nerite tetras.
• The females keep laying eggs, and the eggs can only hatch in brackish water. Thus the unhatched eggs pollute the tank environment and put the lives of other aquatic organisms at risk.
• Nerite snail owners use several methods in this case.
• Fortunately, Nerite snails cannot fertilize the eggs without a male partner; this separation is the most widely used method. Some owners use the scraping technique, and some choose to get rid of them completely. And some owners decide to hatch the eggs; in that case, a separate environment must be created.
• Nerite snail babies mostly live on different types of algae, and for them to be hatched healthy, their standard water parameters have to be maintained.

The removal of Nerite snail eggs isn’t too hard if you are careful and know what to do. We know you can do it!