It’s interesting how female mystery snails can decide when to lay eggs after mating and even whether or not the eggs should be fertilized! The fear of losing a potential clutch of snail babies forced me to find out how to distinguish a fertile clutch of eggs from infertile ones. It could be quite disorienting, especially if you’re a first-time snail parent. So, how exactly can you distinguish these clutches?
The best way to tell if your mystery snail’s eggs are fertile is by eyeballing the clutch for development signs like texture and change in color. These indications are spots in the egg that show the formation of new life. For better analysis, you’d want to hold it under a light so that you don’t miss the signs.
If you have just gotten an eggy surprise from your mystery snail, this discussion will equip you with protocols for how to decide whether the clutch is fertile or not and what to do next in this situation.
Do Mystery Snails Lay Infertile Eggs?
Mystery snails do lay infertile eggs, and interestingly, they can do this purposely. Female mystery snails lay eggs because they’re genetically wired to produce them just like most females do. However, it takes a male and female to copulate before a mystery snail egg is fertilized. This is because mystery snails are not asexual and cannot birth offspring on their own.
5 Easy Ways To Tell If Your Mystery Snail’s Eggs Are Fertile
After the mating procedure, the female mystery snail takes her desired time to lay fertilized eggs. Depending on the availability of resources, female mystery snails can withhold sperm and save it until they’re ready to bring their young into the world. Here’s how to tell if your mystery snail’s clutch is fertile:
1. Give It Some Time
There’s not an exact way to tell if the eggs are fertilized right off the bat. The only way to tell is by allowing the eggs some room and time to develop. This period may last 1 to 2 weeks, depending on how favorable the conditions are for growth. Typically, mystery snail eggs take 2 to 4 weeks to hatch. For this, the eggs need a warm and humid area to develop and grow into hatchlings; the colder it is for them, the slower or even impossible the situation can get. Contrarily, if the weather is too hot for them the eggs simply decay from the inside out.
2. The Difference in Color
After 48 hours, the fertilized clutch of mystery snail eggs turns duller than before. Due to the changes the eggs go through to keep them healthy and safe, they lose the rawness of their newly laid form. You’d also notice irregularities as time passes in the eggs individually compared to the uniform look fertile eggs have, although you would need up to a week to fully confirm this sign.
3. The Flashlight Test
After the given time of 1 to 2 weeks, if the eggs are fertile and in good condition, you should begin to see tiny dots that you hadn’t noticed before. These dots are the eggs simply developing the snail embryos in them. Note that they may not be present in all the eggs in the clutch, but if the eggs are at all fertilized, you will notice these signs on at least some of the eggs.
4. The Touch Test
If you’re a beginner, this test may be a little difficult for you to carry out since you may not know what to feel. However, it entails touching the eggs slightly to determine the texture. Fertile eggs, after a couple of days, tend to get stickier, softer, and fuzzier compared to a clutch of infertile eggs. Generally, they’d feel grosser to the touch as time goes by.
5. The Smell Test
Unfertilized mystery snail eggs eventually rot and start to smell after a week of being in the damp spot. It may not be a brain-altering smell, but you will notice a slight funky odor resembling decay coming from the clutch. If you don’t notice any smell, it’s one of the tell-tale signs that your mystery snail’s egg clutch is fertile!
What To Do With Your Mystery Snail’s Eggs? The Only Two Options
After your snail has laid her clutch of eggs, there are equal possibilities of the clutch successfully hatching or failing to do so when you leave it where it was laid. Whatever the case may be, you must act fast and take control of the situation. Here’s what to do:
Hatch The Eggs And Have Snail Babies
When hatching your mystery snail’s eggs, you must be ready to take care of the numerous baby snails providing them with the adequate resources they need. Handling that number of baby snails is not an easy task, but it’s achievable when you’re equipped with the right information. Here’s how to hatch a clutch of mystery snail eggs on your own!
First of all, you need the following items:
- Plastic container with a tight lid.
- Paper towels.
- Spray the bottle with clean water.
- Hatching tub.
Steps for Hatching Mystery Snail Eggs
- Prepare the container. Ensure the container is clean and sanitary. Place a flat layer of paper towels inside the container.
- Dampen the paper towel. Use the spray bottle to lightly spritz clean water onto the paper towel until it is properly damp.
- Transfer the eggs. Gently place the mystery snail egg clutch onto the damp paper towel, taking care not to disrupt the egg sac. The egg sac is vital for the safety and development of the hatchlings.
- Close the container. Seal the container tightly and place it in a dry, warm area. Ideally, the temperature should match the laying spot. As you’re doing so, do not spray water directly on the eggs, as it can cause the clutch to rot and lead to the death of the eggs. The closed container will create the humid environment necessary for hatching. For ventilation, you should perforate the lid of the container to keep the humidity in while providing oxygen for the clutch of eggs.
- Monitor hatching. Keep an eye on the container for the hatching process. Once the eggs have hatched, transfer the hatchlings into a breeder box to prevent overcrowding in your tank.
- Observe and care for the hatchlings. Use the breeder box to closely observe the growth of the hatchlings before deciding to transfer them to larger tanks or distribute them accordingly.
Dispose Of The Eggs
If you can’t manage an additional hundreds of snails, your best bet would be to dispose of the eggs before they hatch. As disheartening as this may sound, it’s the best decision for the long run if you have limited resources to care for them all or enough new homes for the baby snails. The easiest method is freezing the eggs for 24 hours and crushing them. Afterward, you can prepare snello with protein powder to improve your snail’s diet and overall health.
How Do Mystery Snails Lay Eggs?
Mystery snails can enter an egg-laying spree when the conditions are conducive for them. Say twice a week or 6 to 8 times a month. It all depends on how comfortable the female snails are in their environment. As we have discussed earlier, female mystery snails can save sperm cells to fertilize their eggs and lay their clutch when they’re ready. Your snail can go several months without laying a dot and the moment you look away, you find a clutch of eggs! Best to be on the lookout at all times.
Can Mystery Snails Reproduce Asexually?
Mystery snails cannot reproduce asexually. They need a male and female to copulate in order to produce fertile eggs that later hatch into baby snails. Mystery snails can’t be cultivated without sexual reproduction from the parent snails.
How Do I Get My Mystery Snail To Lay Fertile Eggs?
To get your mystery snails to lay fertile eggs, you’d want to provide a male for it to mate with. This can be tricky on its own because even the best of us mistake the sexes of mystery snails— they all look alike! One way to tell which is the male among them is to identify the snail that mounts the others. The mounting wouldn’t be difficult to spot since mystery snails are known to frequently copulate. Another way is to identify the penis sheath or the absence thereof on the snail. It’s a little tricky, but when you know what you’re looking for, you’ll easily sex your snails.
Once you have the male and female, ensure that the water parameters are correct. The females lay their precious eggs only when resources are abundant. By conducting accurate water tests using API liquid test kits (view on Amazon) you can be on track with the correct water parameters at all times. Also, ensure your snails are fed properly if you want to quit getting the prank egg clutches from your snails.
The table below demonstrates exactly what you need the water to attain for your snails to lay eggs comfortably.
| Parameters | Ideal Range |
|---|---|
| Temperature | 70 – 80 (°F) |
| pH | 7.6 – 8.0 |
| Ammonia (NH3/NH4+) | 0 |
| Nitrite (NO2-) | 0 |
| Nitrate (NO3-) | 0 |
| Copper (Cu) | 0 |
| Water hardness | 150 – 300 ppm |
| Salinity | 0 |
How Do I Stop My Mystery Snail From Laying Eggs?
There is no direct way to stop mystery snails from laying eggs. The female rules the tank, and she will lay her eggs whenever and wherever she feels like it. However, try to separate the males from the females for good. It’s almost impossible to keep track of their mating season as it would depend on the snails individually and the environment you have provided for them, but you can solve the starter pack problems by separating the snails of opposite sexes.
