Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Health => Topic started by: Gaynor on June 19, 2013, 09:04:16 PM
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My long nose snails have odd white spots on them, it started off a couple of days ago with one snail having three spots, now both have them and the one that had three has 9 or 10 of them. The spots are mostly around the head area on both snails. I just had a quick look around and don't think it's ich as people are saying that isn't hard. These spots are definitely hard and hubby tried wiping them off but they won't move. There's nothing on the two nerite snails that are also in my tank, and nothing on the fish. I have seen the red onion nerites riding on the long nose snails backs, but not as close to the head as the spots are. Are they snail eggs, and if so whose? :o
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Snails don't get whitespot, so it's definitely not that.
Do the spots look like small sesame seeds? Nerite snails lay eggs that look like sesame seeds. They are all over the wood in my tanks. And the filter bracket in my 125 litre. The good side is they don't hatch, and even if they did nerite snails need to develop in salt water so any babies won't survive so no population explosion. The downside is that they don't hatch. They stay there, and are very hard to scrape off. The wood in my tank looks like it has white measles. As your long nosed snails do, by the sound of it. Just because you haven't seen the nerites in that place doesn't mean they weren't there when you were not looking. I also think they can place eggs away from their bodies. My wood has eggs in cracks far too small for a nerite to fit in :-\
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Hi Sue,
Yes they look exactly like sesame seeds, but are very white. Is there any way of getting them off or should I leave them?
There must be something really romantic about my tank, first the fish laying eggs, now the snails. :)
Thanks Sue. :)
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I gave up trying to remove them years ago. Though it is difficult to scrub wood without taking the surface off. But I don't think your long nose snails would appreciate being scrubbed either ;D
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Bah, I'll just have to leave it then. :)
Thanks again Sue. :)
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At the seaside you see limpets covered in barnacles. Think of your snails as the miniature freshwater versions of those limpets with the nerite eggs as the barnacles ;D
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As long as the nerites don't stick them all over the long nose snails they could end up looking quite interesting, the long noses are black so at the moment the eggs look like bling lol. Not sure I've ever seen a limpet, I'll have to go find an image. :)