Apple Snail Breeding?

Question

Just bought an apple snail a few days ago and wanted to know about breeding them:

1. Can they lay eggs on their own or do they require another snail?

2. Is there anything special i need to do to get them to breed or to take care of the babies? Or are they fine on their own?

Please don't leave other information, what i'm asking is what I want. I'm an experienced breeder, please don't treat me like a novice.

Thanks for the answers, and thanks for not freaking about the novice thing. Its not so much that people leave extensive answers, its that they say things in their answers that tend ot mean that they think i know nothing about fish care. For instance, describing to me all the things supposedly wrong with my tank and don't even answer my question. I know well how to care for a tank, i just hate people who think they know better when generally they are wrong.

Answer 1

In order to risk insulting you, I simply took a few seconds to browse and find the following link for you:

http://www.applesnail.net/content/multi_languages/english.htm

I understand that you may feel some answerers are overly detailed when providing answers. In most cases, we only do this because so many others read the responses we provide. There are individuals with absolutely no experience to people like me with 25+ years experience. Please do not take offense.

Answer 2

1) Initially yes, they need two to fertilize the eggs. Males and females are separate. But females can store the sperm, much like livebearing fish, so a female can still produce fertile eggs for several months by herself in a tank.

2) They lay their eggs above water, so you should allow them a space of a few inches above the water level if you want to breed them. You have to keep the eggs humid and warm for them to hatch, but if they get knocked into the water, the babies will drown. The safest way to hatch them is to make an incubator to keep them in. This can be done with a plastic container with a lid and some mesh with openings that aren't too small (1/2 inch is good). Put water an inch or so deep in the container, then put the mesh over it, and make a depression in the center so it sags in the middle, but not so far that the mesh touches the water. Carefully scrape the egg mass off the side of the tank and put it on the mesh. Cover the container with the lid and keep it in a warm (mid 70s-low 80s for incubation) spot and start checking inside in about 3 weeks. As the babies hatch, they'll crawl through the mesh and drop into the water. Remove these and put them in the tank with the adults.

The main thing to keep them healthy is to be sure there's enough calcium in their water so they (babies and adults) can repair and grow their shells.