I suppose I’ll start with sexing them. What you want to do is take one out of the water and flip him on his shell. Look to the left side of his foot. For a brief moment you should he able to see inside. If you see a long tentacle like appendage then that is a penis. It is a male. No appendage then it is a female. Mystery snails obviously require a male and female to breed so I’d recommend getting 3-6 to guarantee you get at least one pair.
Now, the tricky part about breding mystery snails is preventing them from killing their selves. They will crawl out of the water and lay their eggs somewhere where they find it to be just right. The humidity tends to determine this. I’ve found them to have laid eggs on the side of my hobs before back when my room had a humidity of around 70% (I do not recommend letting your room be that humid, developed upper respiratory bronchitis because of prolonged exposure to it). I have found so many dead snails that crawled out of the tank then fell or couldn’t get back in the tank because of their agg laying process. What I eventually did was covering every hole I found and making sire they could not get out. It helped in more than one way. First off they couldn’t get out and second off it raised the humidity in the tank which meant that the conditions inside the tank are more favorable for egg laying. I would drop the water level down about 3 inches for them.
When you see the eggs do not put them in the water. That will guarantee they don’t hatch. They need to be misted so they don’t dry out but not wet. Make sure to check on them somewhat often to make sure they haven’t dried out. If you lower the water level just the right amount and they’re near a filter then the splash from the water hitting the surface typically keeps them misted I find.
If you keep at it then eventually you’ll see tiny snails crawling around. Their shells aren’t thay hard so they can become food for other creatures. If you want to maximize the survivors then What I would do is get a styrofoam cup, fill it with tank water, get something that floats, put the floating thing in the cup, carefully remove the egg clutch (I find you can do it with your fingers very easily if you let them harden before attempting to move them), put the egg clutch on the floating thing, then tend to them as you would normally. They will hatch eventually and then go into the water where they aren’t in danger.
