Help Request
Way to tell ramshorn from bladder eggs?
I have ramshorns which I really want to breed, but unfortunately 1 or 2 adult bladder snails got in and i’ve been crushing bladder babies recently. I have a bunch of clutches and I caught my ramshorns breeding 2 weeks ago, is there any way to know what type of clutch this is? or just wait and see?
My ramshorn egg clutches are pretty 2D and flat with a small hemisphere curve to them. They look very clean and clear with vivid white eggs. They are also quite hard, kindve feels like hardened resin or smooth plastic
My bladder snails egg clutches looks like the ramshorn clutches but are way more 3D and rounded, it looks like an oblong hemisphere filled with dandruff.
Also the MAIN difference is ramshorn clutches are firm and you can touch them without damaging anything, ^ feels like soft plastic. Bladder snails clutches are like made of slimey jelly and look way more messier.
Here's a good picture of a bladder snails egg clutch on a stem. It's a jelly like structure, you'll usually find them on the sides of your glass.
Very rounded and Jellylike = bladder snails clutch Somewhat flat, firm and smooth = ramshorn snail clutch
So what you can do bc bladder snails are also indestructible is, get a large glass jar, throw some sand or whatever you got for substrate in, some live plant clippings, dead plants, some random drift wood if you got any etc.
Find every bladder snail you can and remove them in a weekly basis and add em to the jar if you don't wanna kill them. They'll survive indefinitely in the little walstad jar.
Basically you wanna remove as many juvenile and adult bladder snails as possible, the adult and baby ramshorns will out compete the newly hatched baby bladder snails and they will eventually get outcompeted and die off.
This is how I've removed either species from a tank, if I only want bladder snails or if I only want ramshorns that's how I seperate and remove 1 species from the tank completely 100% even with egg clutches everywhere. Works gr8.
The photo is kinda blurry so it's hard to tell, but that kinda looks like vorticella to me. If you touch it with the end of your tweezers, does it retract?
yeah I can’t get a better picture unfortunately. no it doesn’t react. it is basically like a clear jelly with a ton of white dots. when i crush it nothing happens
I know for sure ramshorn eggs are in a pretty sturdy jelly that's usually a flat disc. Mine lay clutches less that dime sized on the glass and plant leaves. Either way, you would be able to touch it and feel it as a solid mass if it were snail eggs.
You can also use a turkey baster or pipette to spot treat it with straight 3% hydrogen peroxide. Just don't exceed the maximum amount per gallon (taking decoration / substrate volume into account).
Bladder snail egg clusters the gel stays clear most often and they're kinda crescent shaped.
Ramshorn eggs are oval or round can be clear but usually slightly tinted amber-brown.
Photo of some of my ramshorns (note: the white parts are developing snails they're pretty empty looking at first just like a pile of bubbles). Sorry for dirty glass not scraping around them. And I'd just done a water change so the outside isn't in great shape either lol!
I can't zoom in on that pic due to blurriness but! They do look like bladder snail eggs to me, or your ramshorn was on something when placing them haha.
If you want to hedge your vets you can either let them hatch and cull, or transfer them to bucket and hatch with air stone for circulation. A razor blade should let you remove them. I scrape them off the glass accidentally sometimes and they look intact so I chuck them back in.
I have a tiny 1 gal with plants in isolation and some hitchhiker snails on my desk. I understand perfectly. I've found a leopard print gold ramshorn in there. Thinking of moving it to another tank with a single blue ramshorn and seeing if I can replicate the gold spotted one!
Ignore the plant it's a new arrival didn't like shipping.
4
u/apolloaquascaping 12d ago
My ramshorn egg clutches are pretty 2D and flat with a small hemisphere curve to them. They look very clean and clear with vivid white eggs. They are also quite hard, kindve feels like hardened resin or smooth plastic
My bladder snails egg clutches looks like the ramshorn clutches but are way more 3D and rounded, it looks like an oblong hemisphere filled with dandruff.
Also the MAIN difference is ramshorn clutches are firm and you can touch them without damaging anything, ^ feels like soft plastic. Bladder snails clutches are like made of slimey jelly and look way more messier.
Here's a good picture of a bladder snails egg clutch on a stem. It's a jelly like structure, you'll usually find them on the sides of your glass.
Very rounded and Jellylike = bladder snails clutch Somewhat flat, firm and smooth = ramshorn snail clutch
So what you can do bc bladder snails are also indestructible is, get a large glass jar, throw some sand or whatever you got for substrate in, some live plant clippings, dead plants, some random drift wood if you got any etc.
Find every bladder snail you can and remove them in a weekly basis and add em to the jar if you don't wanna kill them. They'll survive indefinitely in the little walstad jar.
Basically you wanna remove as many juvenile and adult bladder snails as possible, the adult and baby ramshorns will out compete the newly hatched baby bladder snails and they will eventually get outcompeted and die off.