What do snails feed on in aquarium?

[cyruslaguna]

My plants seems to be losing the strands of grass one by one; is the snail responsible for it? Noticed it likes to crawl around near the soil where the plants emerge from the substrate...

[stormhawk]

Almost all snails will graze on new leaves, if not older ones that are about to rot. My ramshorn, pond, button and this other weird snail will almost always attack the leaves of my tenellus.

In the tank, snails feed on algae, plant matter, uneaten fish food, and occasionally other snails, if they are predatory. It is best for you to take a photo of the snail in your tank. I think plant safe snails are probably the Nerites, but they love to leave their egg cases all over the place. Other than that, they're great snails for a planted tank.

[cyruslaguna]

attached is the pic of the snail destroying the plants in my tank. I've transferred in to a tank with money plants.

Any idea what snail is this?

[stormhawk]

That is probably a Red Ramshorn snail. They are known to graze on your plants if they lack food. My Ramshorn snails love my shrimp food, and even the catfish tabs I use for feeding my Corydoras.

[Blue Whale]

Stormy, I just found a very lame answer.

What do Snail eat?
http://www.whatdosnailseat.com/

I'd say algae, leftover food, dead fish meat, they feed on plants if there are not enough of those leftover. I had some plants, few hundred snails once. Given sufficent micro pellets, they quite leave the plant alone.

[cyruslaguna]

no wonder my plants are losing their grasses and noticed the surface thinned; do they feed on fish poo? Are Nerites safe to be placed in guppy fry tanks as a tank cleaner?

Are red ramshorns more destructive compared to Nerites?

[stormhawk]

Ramshorn typically do not feed on fish poop. They are great for scavenging fry tanks. Nerites are slow movers and typically feed on algae and plant matter alone. Unless your fry tank has some form of algal growth, don't bother with the Nerites. They are not aggressive scavengers like the Ramshorn, pouch and button snails.

[garfieldnfish]

If you want to keep a snail in a planted tank go for a mystery snail. Also called apple snail, but be careful that you get bridgs and not cana. I have apple snails in all my planted tanks and they do not eat healthy plants only decaying plant matter. BTW if you feed your snail fish food it should not bother the plants much, they prefer fish food.

[cyruslaguna]

If you want to keep a snail in a planted tank go for a mystery snail. Also called apple snail, but be careful that you get bridgs and not cana. I have apple snails in all my planted tanks and they do not eat healthy plants only decaying plant matter. BTW if you feed your snail fish food it should not bother the plants much, they prefer fish food.

what are brigs and cana? are they a sub species in the mystery / apple snail family?

Comparing to Nerites, which is more suitable / useful for freshwater aquarium?

[mozesyap]

I had apple snails in my tank before. But they didn't do quite well. Their shells seem to dissolve in the low PH . PH was around 5.5 - 6 I think because of CO2 injection

[alien54d]

Almost all snails will graze on new leaves, if not older ones that are about to rot. My ramshorn, pond, button and this other weird snail will almost always attack the leaves of my tenellus.

In the tank, snails feed on algae, plant matter, uneaten fish food, and occasionally other snails, if they are predatory. It is best for you to take a photo of the snail in your tank. I think plant safe snails are probably the Nerites, but they love to leave their egg cases all over the place. Other than that, they're great snails for a planted tank.

Good thing the nerite snail eggs dont hatch!

[stormhawk]

Well that's the bad thing. Since the Nerites do not successfully see their egg cases hatching, at least in fresh water conditions, we will have to buy new ones if our current ones die off. Bad for us, bad for the wild populations which they are harvested from.

Apple Snails have their pros and cons. Cons to me would probably be their size.

[cyruslaguna]

my red ramshorn just died a couple of days back; saw some blood stains when removing it from the money plant leave when I placed it there after removing dead fries from nursery tank..

what could be the cause?

[Blue Whale]

Well that's the bad thing. Since the Nerites do not successfully see their egg cases hatching, at least in fresh water conditions, we will have to buy new ones if our current ones die off. Bad for us, bad for the wild populations which they are harvested from.

Apple Snails have their pros and cons. Cons to me would probably be their size.

Yeah Stormy, thumbs up for this one. Whilst we want to continue to rear fish and plant water plants, we do not want to do at the expense of causing too much damage to the plants, the fish or the environment.

I get very pissed off watching how they catch tetra in the Amazon area. I don't have chemistry background but they use synite on Discovery Channel (hope I spell correctly).

[cyruslaguna]

there are snails appearing in my aquarium but I only have a nerite moving around; could they be Red Ramshorn? Shell are still transparent but body is reddish...

[stormhawk]

Whale, I think you are referring to cyanide. They use that to collect marine fishes in some places, and fish collected with this chemical usually die soon after purchase.

cyrus, you might have those button snails. If they have circular shaped shells that are somewhat flat, then they are the button snails. I ignore these, but they can do damage to your plants if there's too many.

[cyruslaguna]

Whale, I think you are referring to cyanide. They use that to collect marine fishes in some places, and fish collected with this chemical usually die soon after purchase.

cyrus, you might have those button snails. If they have circular shaped shells that are somewhat flat, then they are the button snails. I ignore these, but they can do damage to your plants if there's too many.

here's the pic of the snail found in my tank:

http://schwarzison.multiply.com/photos/photo/79/35

is this the button snail you're talking about?

[stormhawk]

Nope, the button snails are something else. That's a baby Ramshorn in your picture.

[Blue Whale]

To control snails, I'd introduce the gangster: Gourami. 1 is enough, 2 is sufficient, more than 3 is overstaff policing....you'd get gangster fight.

[cyruslaguna]

stormhawk: Ramshorn also grow even when there's no adult snails in the tank? could it be due to eggs layed by previous adult snail?

Bluewhale: are gouramis suitable to live with guppies?