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i think my snails are breeding, i dunno...I have 2 blue apple snails, had them for about one and a half months or so...any way...there "embracing" each other! are they breeding or fighting? ;-)
if they are breeding...what next? i know they lay eggs, and i'v heard that they prefer to lay them out of the water, that true? what do i do with the fry? do i call them fry? lol
any and all advice is welcome and will be apreciated!!!!!

Well, what you do with the baby snails depends on whether you want them or not. If you do, just leave them alone and you will eventually have more snails than you know what to do with! If you don't like them, get a snail-eating fish, or just pluck the snails out with your fingers.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

yeah i'd like to keep them, how many should i expect? how fast will they grow?

Snails in the apple family lay eggs above the water line. They do this because otherwise the baby snails will drown before ever hatching. They aren't referred to as fry. Hatchling snails, baby snails, whatever, not sure of the correct term, but not fry

When they lay eggs it will be obvious, because it will be a large clutch and above water level. You can expect as many as 100 or more baby snails to hatch. If you don't want them, or want them in a different tank, the clutch can be scraped off the tank wall and discarded or it can be placed in a "hatchery", to be moved to a different tank.

A "hatchery" can be made using a small container with a lid. The lid should have a couple holes in it for air, because that's what the snails will be breathing until they hatch and plop into the water. Until they do that they are subject to drowning. Therefore, the container should be 3/4 full of water with a sponge that touches the bottom of the container, yet has some of the sponge above the water level. The idea is to keep the eggs moist, or else they will dry up and not hatch. Hatching time will vary, but more information can be found at http://www.applesnail.net/

An example of a hatchery is attached. I used vanilla to color the water to show water level in correlation to the sponge. The eggs would be placed directly on the sponge. The lid, when closed, should not touch the eggs. When hatched they can be moved to any tank you desire.

edit- you want to use a less porous sponge than the picture so the snails crawl into or fall into the surrounding water and not "get lost" in the sponge. It's the only sponge I had to give an example with

[span class="edited"][Edited by jake 2004-08-07 12:06][/span]
jake attached this image:
[img]http://www.fishprofiles.net/attachments/410887.jpg"]

well thanx for every thing, every one, but while i was on vacation one of the snails died not sure if it was male or female so i dunno...

I think that snails are male and female (hermaphroditic) at the same time. That's too bad that one died.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

apple snails arent hermaphroditic

I had a mystery snail ( type of apple snail ) lay fertile eggs 4 months after having been segregated from any other snails. They are like some livebearing fish in the fact that they can mate once and seem to produce offspring numerous times even in the absence of a male. In other words, without getting into the birds and the bees, they can store " it " .