# Nerite eggs (UGH...)



## Al-Losaurus (Jul 21, 2009)

So i was just curious has anyone found a quick way to remove these from rocks and drift wood?

Usually they lay them all over my filter intake and i grab a sharp knife and scrape them off one by one...(Ugh like an hour) I just recently noticed 60+ of these things in little holes in my lace rock and like 20 on driftwood. I do not want to scrape up the wood at all. but i do know if they are left alone they will ALWAYS be there.

Can i boil them to make them softer and hopefully fall off? Bleach? Nuke? anything? lol
let me and hundreds of other people know how you get rid of these things or tricks you learned along the way.?

I am contemplating just getting rid of them period they do not do much but make squiggly lines on the glass and there is always one snail with 3 attached to its back giving them a free ride around the tank like 24/7 lol

Thank you for tips/advice you can give.


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## chriscro (Dec 3, 2010)

there is no easy way of removing snails, once you have them your kinda stuck. what you can do is control the population by several methods. one thing i do is leave a piece of lettuce at the bottom of the tank, most snails are attracted and will migrate to it then just remove the lettuce with the snails attached and you can lower the population very quickly. another way to remove snails is by assassin snails but then your stuck with that population. 

to remove the eggs is nearly impossible they lay them everywhere and half the time you won't even see them. yoyo loaches are great for eating baby snails and are tolerable in most tanks.

those are my suggestions


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## Riceburner (Mar 14, 2008)

yep...with 5 yoyos, I don't have any snail problems.  I'd even take some.


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## coldmantis (Apr 5, 2010)

chriscro said:


> there is no easy way of removing snails, once you have them your kinda stuck. what you can do is control the population by several methods. one thing i do is leave a piece of lettuce at the bottom of the tank, most snails are attracted and will migrate to it then just remove the lettuce with the snails attached and you can lower the population very quickly. another way to remove snails is by assassin snails but then your stuck with that population.
> 
> to remove the eggs is nearly impossible they lay them everywhere and half the time you won't even see them. yoyo loaches are great for eating baby snails and are tolerable in most tanks.
> 
> those are my suggestions


Netrite snailes are a little different, he doesn't have a snail outbreak just snail eggs, netrite cannot hatch in freshwater, but they do breed and lay eggs in freshwater, assassin snails most likely will not eat the netrite snails since they are 6-7 times their size, this is what I did for control of eggs, watch your snails. If one climbs on top of another then that is the male, you can remove the female and then repeat until you have removed all females. all mines died for some reason and for the sake of not getting any more eggs I didn't bother buying more, and they didn't really help that my with green spot algae.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

They came off quite well with a razor type scrubber but I don't think I had much luck with wood and rock, I did once take a really stiff brush to them and seemed to do okay, still had some faint outlines of the eggs.

They sure can lay a whole heap again the next day thou lol


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## Viki (Aug 1, 2011)

Question: do they really help controlling algae on the tank walls?


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## Will (Jul 24, 2008)

Help, yes, you can clearly see they help. It's very noticable in the lines they leave in the algae on the glass. Are they they all that's needed? Not at all. They are slow and spend some time dormant. and then, since they leave lots of tracks in the algae, it's apparent they are not thorough.


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

For that really hard stuff they seem to help me out a lot. For the softer wall type algae you'll see those trails. MTS funny enough have been helpful for that from time to time.


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## Al-Losaurus (Jul 21, 2009)

Yes it is the Nerite snails i am talking about the ones that lay useless eggs EVERYWHERE...

Do they help in there own way they do they leave squiggly lines in the algae on the glass that is how i know when to clean the glass when i see lines all over the place.

i recently put a couple of bushy nose plecos in the tank so i may just sell them a buck a piece in less the plecos start eating the eggs. I also added more driftwood so i am really hoping they do not lay more eggs on it before i let them go. The rocks i do not mind the eggs so much cause i have black and white sand that the fish constantly throw on the rocks. Its the driftwood i am worried about i really do not want to have to pull it all out and scrape wit a knife. It is really dark wood and the white eggs that never disappear stick out like a soar thumb.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

my baybe BN pleco doesnt eat their eggs.... And i dont want to get a dojo loach as it might eat snails and shrimps too, or jump off my open top tank


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## FPG (Aug 9, 2011)

I was planning to buy them...but now NO WAY my tank is full with driftwood I don't want ugly white marks on them.....


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## gem (Oct 19, 2010)

correct me if I am wrong, are these the same snails which are famous for eating NOTHING but algae on Aquarium Ornaments, Glass and Real Plants thus keeping your tank squeaky clean?


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

yes, these are the ones, and I love them, they are cute, cant reproduce, eat algae (ie they help my BN pleco clean the tank better). Only problem is, what to do when no more algua left. The eggs arent pretty, but as i have java moss on much of the driftwood, its not that much of a deal to me.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

I wonder if the female will lay eggs if there are no males present. I recently bought 4 nerites and holycow, these girls are extremely prolific. There are eggs all over my quaranteen tank. Now I don't even want to put the in my main tank. Would be nice if there is an easy way to spot a male from a female.

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## Al-Losaurus (Jul 21, 2009)

Zebrapl3co said:


> I wonder if the female will lay eggs if there are no males present. I recently bought 4 nerites and holycow, these girls are extremely prolific. There are eggs all over my quaranteen tank. Now I don't even want to put the in my main tank. Would be nice if there is an easy way to spot a male from a female.


I do not think they will. I had 4 of them for well over a year and zero eggs then i bought a few for smaller tanks and that is where i noticed the eggs start. I shut down the 2 small tanks had no choice but to put them in my large tank and now that is were i am getting eggs and A LOT more often.

Just last night they laid a whole whack over a very big piece of wood i have in my tank 

Someone mentioned the ones that hitch rides on others are males. For me that would not work cause 60% of the time there in one big cluster ball of 7 snails lol all somehow attached to each other.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Hmmm, now you people got me thinking. There are more than just one type of fresh water nerite snails. I wonder if they cross breed. They shouldn't, but would the presence of a male of one type trigger the female of another type to lay eggs? If not. I am all for putting in one snails of each kind.
Let see, to my knowledge, there is:
- batman nerite
- horned nerite
- zebra strip nerite
- dotted nerite
- I once saw a picture of a red shell horned nerite, but have never seen it in person. I would love to get my hands on that one and definately won't mind trying to breed it.

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## FPG (Aug 9, 2011)

IMHO they have more cons than pros....


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

FPG said:


> IMHO they have more cons than pros....


That depends on what kind of set up you have. In partially planted tank. They work as a glass scraper for me 7/24 for free. I'd rather have them clean my glass then me spending 2 hours rubbing at the god damn glass only to see in regrown in 1 week.

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## Will (Jul 24, 2008)

Zebrapl3co said:


> I wonder if the female will lay eggs if there are no males present.


Females will and do lay even without males. A lone nerite can still place eggs about your tank.


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## Bwhiskered (Oct 2, 2008)

I originally got nerite snails to clean some algae off plants. They cleaned the plants and then proceeded to lay eggs all over the glass and driftwood. If that was not bad enough they started to eat holes in the plant leaves. I am happy to say that they are no longer with me. Some little otto cats are much better.


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## Viki (Aug 1, 2011)

Some say that the eggs dissolve over time, is this statement right?
If yes, then how long does it takes?


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## Al-Losaurus (Jul 21, 2009)

If they dissolve over time it must take a very long time. I have a few on a heater suction cup that have been there 8 months plus but look like they were just laid the day before. I have seen ones on glass that reduce to just a ring i think they were eaten but even the ring needs elbow grease to get it off.

I just gave up and sold 7 of them for $5 today i have spent way to much time scraping the eggs off of my filter and glass. They do help with algae a bit but you still need to scrub the tank every so often so figured i would just do the job myself at least now i have no more egg problems.


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## Kooka (Feb 8, 2011)

I agree, they do dissolve over time, but it takes a _LONG_ time. In my own experience, nerites tend to lay their eggs in bunches on driftwood regularly. However, for reasons unknown to me, they go on mad egg-laying sprees. Before you know it, your gravel, glass, thermometer, co2 diffuser, etc, etc... are covered in super-hard white dots! If it wasn't for their ability to keep GSA under control, they would be long gone out of my tank.


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

So what is the alternative to Nerite snails in terms of cleaning a bit of alga (or at least not eating healthy plants), not overcrowding the tank, compatible with fancy goldfish???


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