Trochus snails mass spawn!

[Miami Reef]

My photoperiod is from 3pm-11pm

Today I manually opened my lights at 11am for a quick second because I was just curious to see my tank (last night I changed my carbon and the tank looked so clear around 9am)

So I opened my lights at 11am and the tank is so dirty looking! I thought my skimmer was throwing micro bubbles at first. Then I thought I had a copepod bloom.

But THEN! I see my snails spawning!

They spawned a few weeks ago and I got baby Trochus snails from that event! Should I close my protein skimmer and UV for a day so I can get as many Trochus snails as possible? Or would that cause my tank to have issues? I run filter socks (100 micron) and activated carbon.

 

[Miami Reef]

Bump?

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Not necessary, in a couple years there will be millions of them, mine spawn all the time in every tank I've had, they spawn pretty easily. It does throw you off when you see cloudy water all of a sudden, I've seen it within minutes of walking back to the tank and it does scare you for a second wondering whats wrong, until you see one doing it then it sets in, and your like ewwwwwwwwwwww nature.

 

[Miami Reef]

Not necessary, in a couple years there will be millions of them, mine spawn all the time in every tank I've had, they spawn pretty easily. It does throw you off when you see cloudy water all of a sudden, I've seen it within minutes of walking back to the tank and it does scare you for a second wondering whats wrong, until you see one doing it then it sets in, and your like ewwwwwwwwwwww nature.

It honestly did scare me at first because I thought something died. Then I thought my equipment was failing.

I’ve had baby snails in my sump from the last spawning event. I’m worried that they’ll break a pump lol.

Most ended up in my display though. I transfer the ones in the sump to the display so all seems to be well.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

It honestly did scare me at first because I thought something died. Then I thought my equipment was failing.

I’ve had baby snails in my sump from the last spawning event. I’m worried that they’ll break a pump lol.

Most ended up in my display though. I transfer the ones in the sump to the display so all seems to be well.

oh they will definitely get into pumps, and possibly cause equipment issues. I have a few sicce Nano pumps in the sump that get clogged with them, they bunch up in the corners of the tank and sump, at night they are covering every surface, EATING so they are good but they have a few downfalls luckily during the day they mostly hide, honestly when I suck out my detritus corner I usually go for the snail pile too

 

[GarrettT]

oh they will definitely get into pumps, and possibly cause equipment issues.

Yes! They reproduce like crazy in my system. It’s pretty ridiculous actually. I can’t count how many I have in my sump right now that came from being born and going through the weir overflow. I really need a predator lol

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Yes! They reproduce like crazy in my system. It’s pretty ridiculous actually. I can’t count how many I have in my sump right now that came from being born and going through the weir overflow. I really need a predator lol

Yeah it does become ridiculous, it never fails they are either jammed up in a pump or dying on my montipora it funnels them to the center, causing a dead spot. They really do help get in the tight spots of the rock for film algae so it's a trade off but I don't worry about sucking a few out from time to time.