However, saying it was somewhere between a week and  4 weeks, depending on the variety of snail, seemed a bit broad for a time range,  so I did more digging.

The real variable is temperature. If it is average room temperature, it takes about a week for the snails to hatch.  I suspect that the 4 week ranges were environments on the cold side.

As to when do they reach adulthood, the sources I found all indicated an average of 4 — 7 weeks.

Where do the snails lay their eggs?

The short answer is, pretty much anywhere in the tank. They often attach the eggs, which are in a clear, sticky gel mass, to stems and leaves of aquatic plants, as well as on the glass aquarium walls:

A clear gel mass on the wall of our aquarium that contains small snail eggs

They even lay the eggs on the shells of other snail:

Though it’s hard to see, this Ramshorn snail in our tank is carrying a gel mass full of snail eggs on its shell. If you find the top tentacle and move up and to the left, you can make out a clear gel mass on its shell. There are snail eggs in that gel mass.

Coming up soon, Spinning embryos, heart chambers, shell stats, and what ARE those tiny moving things next to the snail eggs?

Now that we’ve had our wonderful “birth news” yesterday, we want to get back to our list of snail questions.

Saturday we had a gentleman ask if these were the same kind of snails eating his garden. We are happy to tell him, “No.”  His question, however, dovetailed with one asked by a number of people, “What kind of snails do you have?”

Let’s answer the last question first, then we’ll talk about the ones eating that man’s garden.

We seem to have snails from two or three families of gastropods:

• Planorbidae or Ramshorn snails,(click here for another good site with info on Ramshorn snails)
• Physidae, also known as Bladder, Tadpole or Pouch snails, and
• Lymnaeidae or Common Pond Snails.

Here’s a shot of two of our snail types:

A Ramshorn snail (left) and a Common Pond Snail (right)

These three families used to be part of a “suborder” referred to as the Basommatophora.   These are air-breathing snails, with eyes at the base of their tentacles (unlike land snails whose eyes are at the ends of the tentacles). The above three families were the most abundant in this group and populate creeks, ponds, ditches and shallow lakes worldwide. Their shells are thin, translucent and sometimes colorless, and they lack an operculum. Wikipedia gives a good description of this structure:

The operculum is attached to the upper surface of the foot and in its most complete state, it serves as a sort of “trapdoor” to close the aperture of the shell when the soft parts of the animal are retracted.

They are known as Pulmonate gastropods, a group that does also contain terrestrial snails, and in fact the aquatic varieties started out as terrestrial snails.  As such, they have no gills, but instead have retained from their terrestrial origin a mantle cavity that functions as a pseudo-lung, providing that conditions remain moist. They can climb out of water for short periods of time to avoid predators or obtain atmospheric oxygen. The other type of aquatic snails are the Caenogastropods,. We have none of these.  Though there are a few freshwater varieties, the Caenogastropods are mostly marine varieties. They have both gills and operculums.

A good site with a listing of many varieties of freshwater aquarium snails, including information on the above three families can be found on fishforums.net.  There is another site with some good information on these snails as well, called Planet Inverts.

The largest number of our snails are the Common Pond Snails and the Ramshorn snails. As to genus/species names, characteristic genus examples of each are:

• Planorbidae or Ramshorn: Helisoma sp.
• Lymnaeidae or Common Pond Snails: Lymnaea sp.
• Physidae or Bladder,Tadpole or Pouch Snails: Physa sp.

Now, as to the snail eating up our visitor’s garden, don’t feel alone. I collected some beautiful fungi a week ago in Schenck Forest with Dr. Larry Grand, one prize being an orange Chanterelle mushroom that I placed in our forest floor/wood rot terrarium.

Here is one of the prizes from my hike in Schenck Forest with Dr. Larry Grand, an orange Chanterelle mushroom that I’ve placed in our forest floor terrarium.

I discovered that I was not alone in my admiration of this mushroom. Here is the latest shot of that mushroom, as a friendly neighborhood land snail has decided it is a tasty treat:

The latest “admirer” of our Chanterelle mushroom.

For anyone who wants to try their hand at identifying the snail eating their garden, or any land snails in general, here’s an online resource we found that has a lot of good information:

Land Snails of the Great Smoky Mountains (Eastern Region) (PDF)

Non-toxic ways to protect your garden from snails and slugs can be found here.

Stay with us. More answers to more questions coming up shortly!

I read that female Bettas establish a pecking order but do not tear at one another as the males do. One is much larger than the other so there should be no indecision there. Mr Cichlid is interacting with the larger lady quite a lot. Mrs Cichlid is spending a lot of time in the plant attached to stone and warns off any fish who come too close. Maybe they have decided on their territory at last, spurred on by the new additions.

J’ai peu à peu appris à dompter ses magnifiques noirs et blancs, me laissant porter par les histoires que ses images nous transmettent. Privilège rare des images qui vous parlent, qui vous prennent par la main et vous font découvrir la vie qui se cachent derrière chaque cliché.

Le noir et blanc est un vieille amie, celle de mes premiers pas photographiques. C’est une amie fidèle, délicate, sensible, de celle qui vous change la monde pour vous le montrer encore plus vrai, plus cru, plus pur, sans le clinquant que vous impose souvent la couleur. Mais c’est aussi une amie exigeante, des heures à se battre sur une même image dans la lumière rouge d’un labo improvisé, pour enfin obtenir le noir que vous désirez, pour faire apparaitre les détails qui se cachent, pour faire disparaitre ceux qui veulent vous gâchera votre image. Mais quand vous avez entre les mains ce beau tirage dont vous rêviez, la satisfaction est immense.

Le noir et blanc c’est aussi la magie des regards et chez Romann car c’est ainsi que ce nomme notre photographe ce talent des regards, des paysages, des noir et blanc purs chargés d’émotions vous explose à la figure à chaque photos.

Il est temps de se poser, de se lancer d’aller découvrir ces portraits, ces histoires, ces villages, ces villes. Chaque nouvelle image est une surprise, une découverte dans le monde riche et passionnant de Romann .

commençons par un petit tour en Syrie, continuons dans les rues d’Istanbul la sublime, prenez la route du reste de la Turquie pour enfin vous perdre en Asie.

Voilà, il est maintenant temps d’aller découvrir son site.