Like FishDan said, they're easy to take care of. It's not good to rely just on algae for food. So romaine lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, or algae wafers/discs are good. You'll know when a snail is dead if the shell is empty or if when you gently push on the shell door, all the guts come out. If it's alive, when you push on it, it will be firm and bubbles might come out. As for breeding, snails are hermaphroditic, asexual, and sexual I believe. But they lay their egg clutches above the water line so you can remove the eggs if you don't want a ton of baby snails. The egg clutch will look like a pink bubbly blob. Mine have laid 5 clutches in a week!!! Hope this helped!