A few months ago in a nearby pet store I decided..hey, those look like great ones, Ill take two! All has been well, till now.
Okay..it was observed that yes, they are pretty active lately, and pretty much sucking face...but, I thought it was more of "Ill clean your shell if you'll clean mine". Its not.
Okay...heres how it happened.
Bought a new tank, this one just isnt working well for me and I needed to upgrade. Funny, these lovely snails cleaned the place up fabulously but, the last couple weeks....they've obviously had other things they've been doing cuz, its a mess. So, I was filling up the new tank, taking out stuff from old, and I notice what looks like...I dont know, half a fish maybe? Quick head count. Humm..all the fish are here. Closer inspection. Honeycomb like pod thing...oh boy...lots of eggs. But, from who? Since Ive had the rest of the fish for a while, my first thought was those new snails...dangit all what have they been doing anyway??? So, web search for snail species, find out what I have, find out about reproduction basically eggs and embryology....figures...I killed these by them being in the water. Well, that takes care of that. No worries.
Donning a rubber glove to remove said dead babies, I find that the hood of my tank has large masses of eggs hanging out up there where you just cant see it unless you look. Its just creepy.
And how frisky can snails be anyway???
Well, back to the drawing board...lets get lots of info and be prepared...Ive now learned much more than I ever wanted about this...and can I tell you that for the last hour Ive been watching the poor female all curled up with this big old penis groping at her.
TMI TMI TMI TMI TMI
When will he stop the madness??? Should I drape them for privacy? What in the world am I going to do with hundreds of snails? Is this a sign that I get to keep the old aquarium for at least a few more months? Do you think I should seperate them so she gets some rest or let them live it up like the teenagers they are? Is my heat too high...they arent supposed to do this in winter temps.....
Im just all drama today....its nuts!
And just in case you want to know what Im looking at..heres some lovely reproduction stuff...including mounting and sheathing not apparent and eggs...my day...so lovely.
Applesnail Reproduction
BTW...thanks for listening