Zooid's Nassarius

[Zooid]

January 20, 2008

I was fortunate enough to obtain 17 nassarius snails from the breeder here in Colorado. I had a 20 gallon tank set up just for them. The tank has 40lbs of sand and about 15-20lbs of live rock.
It was a pretty cold day and even though I live fairly close to Zerillit (the breeder), I was still worried about the snails getting too cold. I kept them as warm as I could as I drove.
After arriving home, I acclimated the snails for 2 1/2 to 3 hours and placed them in the tank.

Several days lapse and I'm starting to worry that the snails have suffered some casualties because I've only seen 2 or 3 snails at a time even though I'm feeding every day (frozen mysis).
I've never seen bristleworms attack anything unless it was close to death but should I worry about the worms attacking my snails? There are soooo many bristleworms in the live rock that is in the tank.

January 26, 2008

I'm so tired of searching for snails among the live rock. I decided to add a 10 gallon sump onto the 20 gallon snail tank. I moved all the rock except for one piece into the sump. That is more like it! Now I can see most of the sand and therefore, most of the tank area.
Later that day, I find a snail in the sump. It must have hitched a ride on one of the pieces of rock. I removed him from the sump and placed him in the main tank. I also decide to check my ammonia levels because I've had spikes from moving rock before. DOH! It's sitting at .25 on my test kit. I performed a 5 gallon water change and add some amquel.
The snail count today was five in the open at one time. For some reason the little guys like to hang out on the rock. Three of those five were on the rock.

January 27, 2008

Found another snail in the sump. Placed him back in the main tank and took a head count. Saw five in the open at one time with the majority on the rock again.
Continuing to monitor ammonia and change water along with adding amquel.

January 28, 2008

Head count: Six snails at one time (Better, but I'm still worried about casualties especially with the ammonia spike.)

January 29, 2008

Came home from work and quickly fed the tank some frozen mysis and frozen cyclopeze. Turned off the return pump and went upstairs to feed myself. After MY dinner I went back down to make a head count.
OH MY! :elephant: I counted 12 snails out in the open at one time. I'm starting to feel a little better but I'm still concerned with the ammonia because it's holding steady at .25 although the snails seem to be very active. Should I be overly concerned? I'm doing five gallon water changes regularly and using amquel just in case.

Sorry for the lengthy post. I haven't had much time to post since Brian first asked me to keep a log. Working 12 hour days doesn't help me out much hehe. If you read this far, thanks for listening :)

Gale

["Umm, fish?"]

I'm a little concerned at the ammonia. I wonder if adding amquel is keeping you from moving forward in your cycle (the ammonia-consuming bacteria need the ammonia to survive). Can you move anything from a cycled tank in order to jump start the bacteria?

[BrianPlankis]

How long was the 20 setup before the snails were added?

Is it possible to do larger water changes? a 5 gallon change on a 30 gallon system is not going to do much to your .25 ammonia. But if you can get the ammonia below 0.10 then I would actually slow down on the water changes so the bacteria can build up to good levels.

BTW...I'm moving this to the DIBS Nassarius forum so we keep all discussions about them in one place.

Brian

[Zooid]

But if you can get the ammonia below 0.10 then I would actually slow down on the water changes so the bacteria can build up to good levels.

It could very well be sitting at .10. My test kit doesn't test that accurately. I'm sitting between 0 and .25. I'm trying to keep the color less than .25.

[Zooid]

February 2, 2008

Must have been a small cycle because the ammonia is at zero now. Nitrites are also at zero but now my nitrates are up to about 10ppm. I'm debating whether I should leave the nitrates up that high in order to get some algae growing. I was thinking about using the same tank for either the turbos or the ceriths. Thoughts?
I also counted 13 Nassarius tonight. I didn't lose as many as I was worried about apparently.
Has anyone noticed what mating behaviour these snails display? I've noticed a few pairs wrestling in the sand but can't see into the tank very well without a flashlight (no tank lighting) and I didn't want to disturb them that much.

February 3, 2008
I noticed 14 Nassarius at one time! Woohoo. My maximum losses were three snails and possibly they all made it.

February 4, 2008
Head count: 16 Nassarius out at one time.....
I've been feeding shaved cyclopeeze followed by mysis. The cyclopeeze seems to draw them all out but I haven't seen them eat it. They do go for the mysis though. The bristleworms in the tank don't mind at all, they will clean up all the leftovers.

Gale

[Zooid]

I have a question for those that have these Nassarius.
I've noticed that when I feed the tank, the Nassarius that are on the rock use their "slime" to repel down the rock to the sand. It seems that every time I feed I can watch one of these guys climb down an invisible "rope" to the sand.
I was wondering if anyone has seen this same type of behaviour?
Thanks

[BrianPlankis]

I have a question for those that have these Nassarius.
I've noticed that when I feed the tank, the Nassarius that are on the rock use their "slime" to repel down the rock to the sand. It seems that every time I feed I can watch one of these guys climb down an invisible "rope" to the sand.
I was wondering if anyone has seen this same type of behaviour?
Thanks

I have not witnessed that before, so that is a new behavioral observation :D :thumbsup:

I have seen this behavior before in the Columbellid snails, interesting that both species use this as a method of getting to new locations fast.

Brian

[Zooid]

OK....can someone tell me what Nassarius eggs look like?
I have some pictures that I'd like to post but I have no clue what they are. They remind me of very small versions of the Nassarius in my tank though. The eggs(?) are in a circular casing but it looks like there are only 3 eggs per casing. I have several of the casings on the glass near the sandbed. Sorry if the pictures aren't clear enough but it's tough to get a pic of the casings when they are so clear. As it is, I had to put a 10x loop on the lens of my camera to get these pics.
Thanks
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["Umm, fish?"]

I have egg pictures (of the bigger, Tongan Nassarius) in this thread (scroll to the bottom): http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=575&page=3

This is what the larvae of those Nassarius look like (very cute!): http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=815&highlight=nassarius+eggs

[BrianPlankis]

Do you have any Columbellid snails in your tank? Those eggs cases look very similar to Columbellid snail egg masses.

We have not see an egg mass from the DIBS Nassarius yet and that type of egg mass is a common egg mass among snails in general. But we'll need clearer pictures of the little guys to know one way or the other. Sometimes you can put a magnifying glass in front of a camera lense and it makes macro shots much better.

Brian

[Zooid]

Do you have any Columbellid snails in your tank? Those eggs cases look very similar to Columbellid snail egg masses.

We have not see an egg mass from the DIBS Nassarius yet and that type of egg mass is a common egg mass among snails in general. But we'll need clearer pictures of the little guys to know one way or the other. Sometimes you can put a magnifying glass in front of a camera lense and it makes macro shots much better.

Brian

No collumbellids in this tank.....only DIBS turbos and DIBS Nassarius with some bristleworms and mini brittles.
I did use a 10x magnifying glass but I'll see if I can get a more powerful glass.
Thanks
Gale

[Zooid]

double post

[Zooid]

I now have baby Nassarius in my tank. I'm about 80% sure that the eggs I posted earlier are Nassarius eggs. I say this because I saw a new baby Nassarius crawling out of one today. I didn't see it break through the egg casing which is why I can only say 80%. I went to get my camera from my bedroom but when I got back to the basement the baby snail was in a position that was impossible to get a picture of him. However, while I was scanning the sand line with my 10x loop I noticed something moving and decided to snap a picture of it.
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I know, the picture is terrible, but those are grains of sand all around him and I don't have crushed coral. I'm using Carribsea seaflor which is a medium grain sand. Since you can't really tell that this is a snail I took a video. Please forgive the shaky and out of focus video, I had to keep the 10x loop on the lens while filming and I'm getting old so I shake! lol
Baby Nassarius (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Wr1RoaWaM)
I saw three of these. One was crawling out of an egg casing.

[Zooid]

I got a scare tonight as I was feeding. I saw one baby Nassarius nestled in the "lap" of an amphipod. The amphipod was wrapped completely around the little guy.
I decided to wave my hand around to see if I could separate them and when I looked back at them, the Nassarius seemed a little mad because I moved his food from him LOL. The snail was muching on an amphipod that must have been mixed in with the mysis that I fed.

["Umm, fish?"]

Nice! Congratulations!

[miwoodar]

Subscribed. Sweet - I'm looking forward to updates!

You know, I saw Brian last year at the RMRC meeting and I thought, 'cool, this is a good idea'. Unfortunately, like a lot of good ideas, they can all too easily slip through the cracks. Thanks you guys for not letting that happen - it give slackers like me something to grab hold of when we click over here. Thanks to Gary too for tipping me off to check out the action on this site :).

[BrianPlankis]

double post

Gale, great to see your Nassarius breeding and that you might have discovered their egg laying style! What is the diameter of the egg cases so I can keep an eye out for them?

Brian

[Zooid]

The main egg casing is three millimeters and there are three snails per casing and when they hatch, the snails are one millimeter long. All approximates of course but very close. The main egg casings are transluscent so you can actually watch the eggs as they develop. I'm priming my wife for the eventual begging spurt for a better camera and microscope hehe.
All the eggs that I've seen are located on the glass within an inch of the sand line. I wish I had a better camera because I could actually take pictures of the eggs progression with ease. They start as three tiny (less than 0.5mm) yolk sacs in a 3mm egg casing and it seems to take about two weeks or less to fully develop. Now that I know what they look like, I'll time how long it actually takes.

[BrianPlankis]

That is awesome news :) This is one of the reasons we formed DIBS in the first place, multiple people observing the same animals, you start to figure out their biology :D

:thumbsup:

Lets hope you get a good camera!

Brian

[Zooid]

Here are a couple new pics that I thought were cool.
I lost count of the tiny babies at over 10. It's tough to count the little guys.
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The bristleworm in the pic looks pretty scary when you compare his size to the little guys hehe.
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Hopefully these pics are a little clearer than the earlier ones. Same camera but I finally figured out how to take decent pics :D

[Zooid]

Baby trying to escape egg casing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgOuvHfIHdE)

My index finger next to the same egg casing in the above video:
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Two babies hanging out on glass:
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[Zooid]

I may have to give Andy some more Nassarius.
I tried to do a snail count. After about 100, it just gets far too difficult to continue counting.
I'm feeding them mostly New Life Spectrum pellets every day and some frozen brine shrimp every other day. I'm almost at the point where I want to transfer some of them to a 30g tank. The tank has one inhabitant and it's a snowflake eel. I don't know if he will go after the snails but if he does I'll just have to move the eel.

["Umm, fish?"]

Well ... sure. :) How big are these guys at adulthood? The ones you've given me seem to be doing fine (along with the rest of the menagerie). I'm feeding them Spectrum pellets, too, and some Formula 2 flake. I certainly haven't seen any eggs yet, but they're still so small.

[Zooid]

My egg laying adults are only about a 1/2" long. That's about as big as they seem to get. The babies grow fairly fast. I have some that are probably 1/4" long and I'm hoping they are mature enough to breed. I'd like to separate some out because there's no way for me to tell which ones are laying eggs.

["Umm, fish?"]

Cool! Well I'm certainly ready to see some eggs whenever they get around to it. :)