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Hi All,
I am new to this forum, but have been reading your posts for my topic and it isn't showing up. This is my first venture into ponds and aquariums. So here goes.
I have 12 female and 5 male adult Japanese Trapdoor snails that have been in my pond all summer and I never found any babies, so I brought them in and set up an aquarium to observe them. That was on Oct 9, 2005 today is Nov 4, 2005 and I have 98 babies. I have moved all of them to a separate aquarium. These were all live births and I watched many of them being born. Some I would only watch 1 be born, while one single female I watched 5 be born to over about 2 hours.
My comments and questions are:
1. All the research I have done would indicate that this species of livebearers usually
has 2 babies 2 times a year.
2. My pond store thought I was nuts till I took 2 adults and some of the babies in and
they confirmed my identification as accurate.
3. Has any one else ever heard of this happening?
4. Do you think it is because of optimum water & food conditions?
5. Does anyone know where I can find more in-depth research on these snails?

http://s2.invisionfree.com/Fishpondinfo/in...t&CODE=00&f=208

I tried to add photos and this came up - hope it is the 5 pics showing a live birth
Thanks all,
Nora

It's not that simple to sex trapdoor snails but with that many, I'm sure you have males and females. It is not unusual to have baby trapdoor snails. In the pond, perhaps some animals ate them, or they were simply too small to notice.

I've not read that they have 2 babies twice a year. Someone sent me photos of a birth with at least half a dozen babies. I'm sure they have more than 4 babies a year. If that were the case, you wouldn't have 98 babies.

What about this story did the pet store people find to be nuts?

If you have trouble posting photos, you can e-mail them to me (e-mail on my site), and I can post them. I have this photo of a mother with what looks like about half a dozen just-born babies:
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/babysnails.jpg

Thanks for the info Robyn, hope you got the pictures in your email. The pond store was the first to tell me the 4 offspring a year story and they didn't seem to want any information to the contrary. Especially since they sold them to me with that guarantee.

Nora

I got the photos. I tried to upload them at work by copying to a disk and then ftp'ing into my site which I've done before. The ftp files are all empty though. I'm sure it has something to do with their moving my site to a new server and ftp not working with Internet Explorer. Anyway, I have to wait until Saturday to use Netscape at home on my slow connection to upload the photos to my site when I can then link to them here.

Here are the five photos of the trapdoor snails that she sent me (as sent).