Anyone ever set up a snail hatchery?

[LaneBrain]

I have HUNDREDS (thousands?!) of baby banded Trochus snails that come out at night. Has anyone ever raised them in a separate tank? Picture to come once the lights go down.

 

[garyl]

Too funny - I was searching Trochus snails on BRS because I too have thousands all of a sudden.

Started with 10 adult snails.

Will they all live?

What the heck am I going to do with hundreds/thousands of pin head sized baby snails?

I can't even clean the glass without knocking hundreds off.

I certainly don't want them constantly dying in the tank.

This wasn't a one-time spawning event, because some of them are bigger than the rest.

Will a six-line wrasse eat them?

Anyone with experience in snail extermination out there?

 

[Aquatic Nerd]

Could also be colonista snails

 

[garyl]

I do have a new tank and from things I have read, it should settle down as my tank ages.

Hope so...

 

[garyl]

So, it's been a few months now, and the rate of new snails haven't slowed down yet.
The biggest "babies" are the size of a pea now and the new babies never seem to end.
I keep scraping them off the glass and throwing them in the sump.
I'm starting to get a little tired of cleaning snails out of my skimmer and I fear scratching my glass with their tiny sharp shells. I'm probably paying a small fortune in calcium carbonate for the *&^%$** shells.

Will this ever end? I have thousands of them. Do I just need to buy a melanarus wrasse and let them go for it? Will the wrasse kill all my snails including the bigger ones or just eat the little ones whole?

Anyone with any solutions?

Thanks.

 

[coralfishreef]

Without wrasse - too many snails
With wrasse - too few snails and no visible pods

Adult Banded Trochus are $5 a snail on average.

 

[garyl]

Operative word is "adult"

It has been 2 months to get to pea-size. How many more months before anybody would want them?

I need to figure out a happy medium. I don't mind them breeding once a year, but continuously?

I'm leaning toward the wrasse.