Golden Apple Snails... Egg Farm But No Babies!

[timmystood]

Hey Guys

I have two golden apple snails in my community tank. Every single night one of them climbs the tank, comes out of the water and lays loads of eggs on the lid, usually on the light unit (I assume because here it is damp and warm). However, they never hatch. I've never removed the eggs so it's not a case of me removing them too soon.
Any tips on how to get them to hatch? I'm pretty sure the other one is a male seeing as he/she never lays any eggs themselves?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tim

 

[vancouver]

Not sure about the weather where you live, but apparently clutches don't hatch as well in colder weather..

Out of 5 clutches in the last month, only 1 baby has developed and emerged. My snails have been laying eggs every few days for the past week.

Do you know about hatching containers?
Get a plastic container, pop a couple holes in the top.. put maybe 1/2'' of water in it, then find something to put in there for the clutch to float on.
Some people get a styrafoam ring, then put a piece of knitting board on it, then lay the clutch on top of that.

So the clutch stays above the water line, but stays moist from the condensation in the container..

I could take a pic of mine if the description wasn't good enough.

 

[timmystood]

I could take a pic of mine if the description wasn't good enough.

If you could please, that would be appreacited.

 

[vancouver]

Aww I could have had some wicked pics 5 mins ago..

2 clutches started hatching and there were about 50 little snails all over the container..

I'll take some pics tonight.. maybe some more babies will have emerged by then.

 

[vancouver]

Here is a pic..

The big container floats in the tank.. there is a smaller container floating inside the main container.. with knitting board on top..

I put about an inch of water in the big container, a little bit of water in the small floating container inside, then the knitting board on top..

When the babies hatched, some were in the small container under the knitting board, while others were in the big main container.

I didn't have a styrafoam ring, so I used the smaller container as it floated like a styrafoam ring would..

Lid goes on with a few holes, so condensation will build up and keep the eggs from getting too dry.

 

[timmystood]

Thank you very much Vancouver.. i'll give it a go!

 

[vancouver]

My first 3 clutches only hatched 1 baby total... They were getting too wet... Someone told me to wet them everyday, but that was too much... so I stopped wetting them, and I put the container right under the light.