Bogwood & Snails

That's the trouble with snails! I have nerite snails in 2 of my tanks, one has bogwood, the other has mangrove root (which looks like a chunk of wood). The nerites have laid eggs on the wood in both tanks - and nerite eggs look like sesame seeds which don't come off or hatch as nerites need salt water to reproduce successfully. Snails seem attracted to wood.

What type are your snails? I have little flat spiral ones (ramshorns) that came with plants, other people get pond/tadpole/bladder snails (different names, same snails). I have given up trying to remove the ramshorns from my tank and just live with them. I do crush them against the glass when I see them and the fish enjoy the snack.

Have you scrubbed the snails eggs off your piece of wood? That would be the easiest thing to do. Whenever you see them, take the wood out of the tank and scrub it. While you are cycling, if you leave the wood in the bucket, any eggs that do survive being outside will hatch, then you can give the wood a good rinse to get rid of the baby snails.

When you say you are fishless cycling with plants, do you mean you have plants in while doing a fishless cycle by adding ammonia or that you are doing a silent cycle? The latter involves planting the tank very heavily, then when they are growing add fish fish very slowly.
If you are using ammonia, it is probably a good idea to leave the wood out till the cycle has finished simply because bogwood lowers the pH, but the filter bacteria grow better at higher pH.

I'm not sure about mangrove root as I haven't checked the pH of my tank since I got it. Since I do large weekly water changes, the pH probably wouldn't have chance to drop much anyway. The only thing I know for sure about mangrove root is that it doesn't turn the water brown. The woman in the shop told me that but I still put it in a bucket of water when I got it home - and she was right.