White spots mostly on plant stems. Please help!

[Ohioguy]

Ive done quite a bit of research over the past couple of weeks on the internet but cant seem to find the answers, nor the same problem I have, to my issue. I have these white little spots on my plants that seem to be multiplying like crazy. They are mostly on the stem near the roots but have shown up on the leafs of my plants and even on my glass. They started on a Banana plant and have quickly spread to every plant in the tank except my Java Moss. I have attached a picture of a dried piece of stem I broke off with the white dots on it. Any suggestions as to what it is and how to get rid of it? It has already killed my Banana plant and I don't want to lose anymore plants. Thanks for the help all!

[gy960]

Do you have any nerite snails in there?

[aznartist34]

I second the nerite eggs

[Ohioguy]

I do have a snail that is brown with black stripes. I cant remember the name of it.... Would this be a nerite snail? Also if this is what the white dots are, are they harmful to the plants? My banana plant seemed to be fine until I got these guys on there.... Thank you all for the help so far! Somewhat relieving to know that they are eggs and not a fungus!

[Complexity]

Definitely nerite snail eggs.

They will not hatch into baby nerite snails. They require salt in the water to hatch. Those eggs are doomed to do nothing more than sit there until you scrape them off.

They do not harm your plants. Whatever is going on with your banana plant is a separate issue.

I think they are just unsightly. After having nerites for 5 years or so, I finally gave mine away so I wouldn't have egg spots all over my tank when I redid it. My nerites put eggs everywhere -- on the plants, on the plumbing, on the substrate, you name it, it had an egg. The eggs did not go away over time either. They stayed the same for what seemed forever. Removing white egg spots from black plumbing wasn't fun as they were hard to scrape off. For this reason, I decided to give my nerites away.

However, as unsightly as the eggs may be, they do absolutely no harm to anything.