[lucas224]

Will snails naturally breed in a reef tank? I saw a bunch of baby snails at the LFS that hatched ,but it didnt have any fish in it. I have alot of different snails. Will most fish eat the eggs or larve before they are snails. If they do what kinds of fish?

[spanko]

I found found numerous snail egg "clutches?" on my glass and sometime down the road they are gone. Did they hatch, did they get eaten? Hard to say but I do see baby snails in the tank from time to time so some are at least getting that far. Tank has been up for a little better than 1.5 years now and I am in no way overrun with snails so I would say that they are getting eaten or dieing from competition for food.

[ksreefbuilder]

I have tons of Nassarius snails in my tank and sump, and have eggs on my glass all the time, but between the fish and crabs which eat them non stop I would say 99% of them get eaten or die before hatching. I do have baby snails every now and then though, but like I said not too often. The place I do see them hatch the most is in my sump, where they have nothing to eat them.

[dori9941]

Nature will find a way.
All I breed are ram horn snails and they are the fastest breeding fresh water snail.
So, nothing to jump around about. my 10g FOOD tank for my puffer fish has about 5-15 ( at 1 time) ghost shrimp (mostly females) and they pick through the laurve and some egg sacks.
These snails breed at an incred. rate so I still end up with snails and if I'm luck shrimp. they are so tiny
If you have more snails then can be ate or sucked up in a water changes then you will have some grow up.

Snails breed most wen the ph is perfect so it's also a good sign, like molting