White Egg Type Things

[Tadpoleuk]

Appearing overnight the bog wood covering the back of my tank has little calcium white egg type things on it. I thought one of my fish might have laid them so I left them alone for a week or so when they didnt hatch I scrubbed all the wood and put it back.I could burst them with my finger nail but they are very difficult to remove even with a clean scrubbing brush and have stained and left traces all over the wood.
The problem seemed to have cleared up but now I have another outbreak and its worse than before.The egg type things are only on the wood and not on any plants or glass or stones.I have tried surfing to find out what it could be but have drawn a blank.I havnt got any new fish or plants or snails recently so I dont know where they can be coming from.The fish dont appear to be affected by these white things but they look bad and im worried it could be a disease or parasite . Can u advise me please , I have been keeping fish for years and have never seen anything like it. We also have another tank in a different room with no signs of these white things. It was very difficult to take pictures where u could see them but I tried my best
thankyou

--Tank contents--
20 neon tetras
2 bristlenose catfish
1 hasbrosis
3 guppies
4 siamese fighters
1 onion snail (not apple)
4 glass catfish
malaysian live bearing snails (not invited)

picture1

picture2

 

[WILDER]

Sounds like snails eggs which can take up to 10 days to hatch.

 

[diademhill]

Do you have a female Corydoras habrosus in the tank - they look like cory eggs.

BTW what is an onion snail?

Sue

 

[WILDER]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=75554

 

[diademhill]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=75554

Thanks Wilder. I breed Red ramshorn & nerite snails ( & MTS inadvertantly - horrid things) but I've never heard of an onion snail - Snails with onion are quite tasty though............

 

[WILDER]

Managed to find a red onion snail, but it was on a site no info on them, can't seem to find any info on the onion snail though, don't like to look at snails never mind eating them.

 

[Fish_n_Frys]

Snail Eggs, thats what I think but Im suprised you saw none on your plants or stones though.

Missy​

 

[Tadpoleuk]

Thankyou all for your replys i really appreciate your opinions

Yes the hasbrosis is female , she is very old though, i have had her at least 6 years i will look up corydoras eggs though i cant imagine all these coming out of her tiny body ..

I had thought about the snail as it is quite a new addition i have had it about six months , the other snails i have had layed eggs in clumps and not scattered like this .I will investigate that as well then , as you say the red onion snail is not easy to find on the web. I have posted you some pics of it .It must have known i was going to make it a star as it was on the front of the tank waiting for me

As long as i know its not some horrible fish lice or obvious known problem i will leave the eggs alone and see what happens.My brother thinks they have been on there 2 weeks so maybe the snail is infertile they show no sign of changing shape or color. They just ruin the look of the tank and that wood is not cheap. I could remove the snail but its quite active and nice to watch. I wonder if its both sexes like the apple snail . It is the same size as a zebra snail i have one of those in the other tank.I have only ever seen one batch for sale so it would be nice if it had babies. I will let you know what happens

onion 1

onion 2

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Tadpoleuk

Those are definitely not eggs from your cory. While it's not impossible for a lone female to spawn infertile eggs, it doesn't happen very often and they don't look like that.

Frankly, I don't like the looks of that, and if it were mine, I would take it out of the tank until I found out what is causing it. It would probably be fine in a bucket of water with an airstone to keep it from getting stagnant.

Just on the chance that it is some kind of mold or something from the wood, why not try posting in the Planted Tanks section? The members there use wood and might be able to offer you some advice.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showforum=10

 

[Tadpoleuk]

Hello again,
I decided to update you on my discoverys. It turns out the little eggs are from the onion snail.
It may be a variant of the zebra snail , I have found it under the name "nerites". A few people have reported having these eggs in their tanks but they have so far not been bred in captivity. Mine hatched after 2 or 3 weeks but no babies have been seen but there were definatly fewer eggs than before on the wood.I have read the babies are free swimming larvae and if this is the case they would have been sucked up my eheim filter I have only found about 4 sites that mention them , some people think the eggs will only hatch in brackish water and or if they are exposed to the tides, air sun etc. They are pretty impossible to remove from the hard surfaces they are laid on so I will not replace the wood till the snail dies a natural death. It is written they can live a while. The snail is female and it does say they are single sex and they actually mate in the conventional way so maybe she came fertilised already and waited till conditions were right to start laying. If they are fed well and content they will lay alot of eggs. I would be very happy to have little snails but im more happy to have solved the mystery , thanku all for your help

Here is one of the sites that mentions them in their natural habitat and shows this photo

I think you will all agree with me that these sesame seed eggs are the same things covering my bog wood .

My Webpage

This was the site i took the photo from, quite an interesting read.

Thankyou for your help

 

[WILDER]

Bless her, glad you solved the problem.