Cerith Snail Eggs

 

I guarantee you they are hatching in your tank and soon you may see baby Ceriths crawling around. Look for tiny white shells in the sand and on the glass, especially at night. They are sometimes mistaken for Pyramid Snails but easily distinguished because baby Cerith shells are not so white and do not have such a sharp point at the end. They actually don't look very conical when they are that small. Here is a thread with a pic, unfortunately the pic is not focused.

 

Sitting the eggs in a small container of water with no circulation is not going to do it. Scraping them off the glass also destroys their protective encasement. It's also possible that their first stage is planktonic, though I doubt it is a lengthy stage and they soon end up in the sand.

 

If it were me, I would first look at how this might be done naturally. Unfortunately, they are in a tank with a fish that loves to eat new baby snails, the Sixline Wrasse.

What kind of Blenny?

How many Hermits are in that tank? Hermits will eat them too.

Any bugs in the sand that may prey on baby snails?

What is the chance that you could remove these predators?

 

I've had a few Ceriths grow up in my tanks over the years, but even if there were dozens or hundreds, it still is questionable as to whether it was financially feasible to mess with, compared to not having any control of flatworms or coral predators by the Sixline.

 

I had Margarita snails reproduce like crazy and have given away hundreds of small Margaritas. It was the strangest thing when I first noticed the spawning. I thought something had died because the entire tank was cloudy one evening. As I stopped to investigate I saw Margarita snails sitting piggyback 2-4 high. Some were squirting eggs and some were squirting sperm. The eggs were like tiny particles of Oolitic sand spewing into the water column and the sperm was just milky. A few months later I started to notice the young snails. It was cool.

Some of the eggs have been laid in the overflow of the tank, so I've left those and hope they will hatch.  I've read that the fray (not sure if that's what you call a hatched snail) cirrculate in the tank for the first few days, so I'm not sure if they will all get sucked into my sump and then back into the tank to be eaten by the 6-line.