Breeding Journal Species: Certhium Altratum (Flordia Cerith Snail)

General
Species: Certhium Altratum
Social Structure: Just a group
Size of Individuals: 1in
Age of Individuals: Unknown but probably one year
Date added to Tank: May of 2009

Broodstock Tank Details
Size of Tank: 135 gallons
Substrate Details: 2in sandbed with 150 pounds of live rock
Filtration Details: Grape Caulerpa, Wire Algae
Water Changes: 1, 10% every other week
Water Temperature: 78-81 degrees 
Lighting: Outer Orbit 6ft lighting fixture
Lighting Cycle: 14hours 8:00 A.M.-10:00 P.M.
Other Tank Inhabitants: Royal Gramma, bubble tip anemone, green mandrin, sailfin tang, powder brown tang, 1 damsel, flame angel, 1 pepperment shrimp, 2 gold stripe maroon clownfish, 1 arrow crab, pistol shrimp, pistol goby, orchid dottyback, many corals, other cleaning inverts


Broodstock Feeding Details
Food Types: Algae off of the glass
Feeding Schedule: None

Spawning Details
Date of First Spawn: This was the only one that I recorded April 1, 2010
Spawn Time of Day: Early morning
Dates of Consecutive Spawns: Unknown
Courtship Details: Unknown
Egg Size: about .25mm
Egg Color: clear
Egg Count: 1,000 per egg mass

Hatch Details
Hatch Date: April 6, 2010
Hatch Time of Day: Unknown
# Days after Spawn: 5
Larvae Description: they have a small white shell and they are about .25mm they grow quickly and begin to develop the body of the adult


Larval Tank Details
Temperature: 70-80degrees
Size of Larval Tank: 135 gallons
Substrate Details: bed of live sand with live rock
Other Tank Decor: various corals
Filtration Details: grape caulerpa
Lighting: Outer Orbit 6ft fixture
Lighting Cycle: Atinics 8A.M. - 10P.M. Halides 9A.M. - 9P.M.
Water Changes: 1 per month

Larval Feeding Details
Food Types: Unknown
Feeding Schedule: Unknown

Metamorphosis/Settlement
Date of Settlement Start: Unknown
Days after Hatch: Unknown
Date of Settlement End: Unknown
Description of Fry: Long white shell that is about 1mm long and .25mm wide

Grow-Out Tank Details
Temperature: 78-80degrees
Size of Grow-Out Tank: 135 gallons
Substrate Details: live sand, live rock
Other Tank Decor: various corals
Filtration Details: grape caulerpa
Lighting: Outer orbit 6ft fixture
Lighting Cycle: Atinics 8A.M. - 10P.M. Halides 9A.M. - 9P.M.
Water Changes: 1 per month
Size at Transfer: None
Age at Transfer : None

Grow-Out Feeding Details
Food Types: Algae off the glass
Feeding Schedule: None

Additional Information
Miscellaneous Information: I have not seen the larval cycle of these snails I have just looked at the eggs.  I know that these snails are reproducing in my tank because I started off with 12 and now I have over 100.  I'll post pictures of some of the snails which have grown in my tank.



You will be required to provide photographic evidence in this thread of each event submitted for the MBI Program.
If your thread does not contain these photos the MBI Committee will not be able to approve your reports.

Here is a link to some pictures of the eggs.
http://www.masm.org/mForums/tm.aspx?m=37461
 

 
 
 

 
 

 

 
 

Does anyone know if this is a species in DIBS?  I ask, because I'm very curious to hear about Kevin's success in having this species readily reproducing in his tanks without any work.  We need snail species like that as components of captive bred cleanup crews!  Kevin, keep at it, and know that folks like me will want your snails!!!

Oh, and can you post a picture of the actual snail?

Oh... thats what that is... i have 50 ceriths and they keep laying but did not know they counted for mbi, will record...

Thanks Matt, here are some pictures that I took today.  I'm having trouble getting pictures of the snails after they hatch but I'll try to describe them.  They look like a minature astrea snail after they hatch and their body slowly elongates and forms spirals at this point they are still white.  Then they go through what I think is meta and they get color and they get wider. 
The snail is above my finger that is one that grew in my tank.


This is one of the adults, sorry for the bad quality of the pictures.

Well I was just looking into my tank and I found some larvae that were out here are some pictures.   
Note: this larva is about 2 mm long
 

 
There is the larva on the glass again note its small size compared to the grains of sand.

Louis sorry I didn't see your post earlier, what species of cerith snail are they?  Just wondering since there are like 300 species in the certhium genus.

I figured out that I was wrong the picture that I posted of the snail that I thought was a larva is actually of a snail post metamorphosis.  These larvae are about 100microns by 100microns
Here is a picture post hatch

Ok, I'm going to have to prove that these snails are 60 days post hatch.  I'm going to move some of these snails into either my new broodstock system or my grow-out tanks.  I'll post pictures later .

So today I moved 10 of my snails from the container that they were contained in inside my main tank to my refugium.  These snails were at least 10 days post metamorphosis because they are 3x larger then the smallest larvae.  So in 41 days I'll have 60 days post metamorphosis completed .

Matt: These snails breed readily and without stimuli
Mine all bred at once though, one started and the same day 4 others laid eggs

I am trying to figure out a way that I can prove these snails are 60 days post hatch without waiting.  Are there any articles that exist that tell about how much shells grow in this species of snails?  I was taking pictures today and some snails are 6mm long and others are 11mm long so I was just wondering if there was an article talking about this.  I'll post pictures of the juvenile snails later.

Here are some pictures of my snails
 
 

 




 





 
These are all snails that have grown up in my tank, as you can see there are some very different sizes, the smallest snails on here are about 2x larger than they were after metamorphosis.  I'll try to find a snail that is 3mm long.

I took some measurements tonight and I'm going to measure the same snails again tomorrow to figure out how old they are.

Here are the measurements:
Standard                                                            Metric
1) 0.2575 in - long                                               1)  6.53 mm - long
2) 0.2885 in - long                                               2)  7.33 mm - long
3) 0.3265 in - long                                               3)  8.29 mm - long

I'm going to figure out how much the shells of these snails grow per day and then I should be able to find out how much older they are then the smaller snails.

Ok I'm not 100% sure that this is correct but I thought it over for a while.  Here is my hypothesis:

A larval snail is ~2mm long at one month old this is because they are growing very quickly to survive.  After this period they go through metamorphosis and their growth slows down, around 6 months old this snail is ~10mm long.  Therefore the snail must grow 8mm in 5months so:
                8mm
            150days= ~ 0.0021 inches of growth per day, or ~ 0.053mm of growth per day
This means that a snail grows ~ 1mm every 18.75 days which seems possible.

I hope that this makes some sense, this is only my hypothesis at the moment.  I'm going to remeasure the snails later to see how much they grew from yesterday.

So the way that I took the measurements yesterday were incorrect, I decided to retake the results and I have already edited my old post.  I'll remeasure the snails tomorrow to figure out how much they grow overnight.

Here are today's results:
Standard                            Metric
1) 0.2595 in long                1) 6.58 mm long
2) 0.2905 in long                2) 7.37 mm long
3) 0.3285 in long                3) 8.33 mm long

I'm going to measure these for one or two more days but it looks like my hypothesis may be correct .

The results of day 3:

Standard                Metric
1) 0.2620 in            1) 6.65mm
2) 0.2930 in            2) 7.44mm 
3) 0.3305 in            3) 8.39mm

10 more days until I'm 60 days post metamorphosis .

Ok it has been 64 days since I moved the snails into the refugium and today I pulled one out and took a picture to show that one was still alive I took it ontop of my watch so that it can be confirmed I took it today.