Snail Identification

[tmoney7]

 
I was wondering what kind of snail this is because at the moment i have 3 nerite snails and they have laid eggs everywhere.  I know that they can lay eggs in FW but that they most likely do not hatch in FW.  So at first when i saw these guys and they were much smaller i thought that somehow they had hatched and these were baby nerite.  But as they get larger i am starting to think that these are not baby nerites but rather something else that hitched a ride from my vallis that i bought about a month ago.  There is 4 of them and i am just curious as to what they are.  Most likely as they get bigger and my other 10 gal gets cycled i will move them over there and they can have fun going crazy and populating that tank with the endlers.

 

[fm1978]

Looks like a Ramshorn and they most certainly would have come in with your new plants.

They breed like mad from a very early stage, too!

 

[tmoney7]

That's what i was thinking.  It looks almost identical to ramshorn snails so i think i will go with that for now.  How big do they generally get? I was just wondering so that i may tell how old they are getting and try and figure out when they will start breeding.

 

[fm1978]

You're from the US, so about the size of a quarter, maybe...

Judging by it's size right now, it's not far away from breeding age now! Watch the population explode very soon!

 

[PrincessKiara]

Will only one breed? Cause I have just one that looks exactly like that! And I know they sometimes breed with themselves, being hermaphrodites...

 

[fm1978]

Yes they can reproduce on their own.

They are hermaphroditic and generally still need 2 to reproduce - one provides the eggs, the other, the sperm. However, just one ramshorn can produce 'clones' of itself.

 

[PrincessKiara]

I can get another one tomorrow at school Thanks! They are my favorite snails so far, though Mysteries are a close second

 

[tmoney7]

Judging by it's size right now, it's not far away from breeding age now! Watch the population explode very soon!

 
Okay i hope my other tank gets cycling then so i can have them go crazy in that tank

 

[Donya]

Topic moved to the fw inverts section.

 

[Essjay]

The photo looks like the snails I have. I gave up trying to get rid of them years ago, I just don't feed the fish very much and there aren't too many of them. I squash them against the glass and the fish eat the insides.
 
There are several species of Planorbis. The ones in my tanks never get bigger than an eighth of an inch (3mm) across, not as big as the ones fm1978 mentioned.

 

[Wildbetta]

Most ramshorns will get the size of a nickel but there are some strains that will get as large as a quarter although it is rare to get those.  I would def say that it is almost big enough to start breeding if not already big enough.  

 

[tmoney7]

Yeah that one from the pic is the largest and is about half the size of an eraser on a pencil.