Who's eating my plants!?

beviking

beviking

Senior Member, Sophomoric Attitude
Feb 16, 2002
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Syracuse, NY
Someone is munching my new anubia nanna leaves! A couple of the older leaves had spots that look like possible chewing/rasping marks that have turned into holes. The new leaves are getting eaten but I never see any fish doing it. I removed my "Gold Inca" snail (which I believe is Pomacea bridgesii and have seen go over plants but apparently is only eating algae) and the leaves are still getting munched! My inhabitants are from least suspect to most:
-tetras, danios, rainbows, rasboras, ottos, botia loaches, swordtails, platys, mollies, hillstream loaches, u/d catfish, and a clown pleco.
In their defense, I had skipped a week (I know-BAD aquarist!) without any fresh veggies.
Any suggestions??
 
It is a new plant? I've had new anubias develop the holes you're describing when first introduced to a tank. I just snipped off those leaves, and the plant regrew healthy, intact leaves, leaving me with the impression that the holes were some sort of reaction to the change in growing emmersed versus submerged, or the different water conditions.
 
No, all 3 plants have been in the tank for...6 months or so. They have been doing great! And I haven't added any new fish in a month. It seems the munching is being done at night since the new leaves are smaller when I get up in the morning. There are visible serrations (bite marks!)along the edges of the new leaves. I'm taking the pleco out and see if it stops.
 
I've got the same problem, you most likely had some ramshorn eggs hitch a ride into your tank with any of the new plants. You should always make sure when you buy new plants to dip them in a solution that kills any snail eggs before adding them to your tank. You can also wash them thoroughly and feel for the eggs before putting the plant in the water. Ramshorn are BAAAD news when it comes to planted tanks because they feed on new leaves for anything else. Malaysian trumpet snails are good for combating egg laying snails because they're livebearers, only eat algae, dead and decaying leaves, and best of all (unless you're breeding an egg laying fish in the same tank), eggs, eggs of anything in the tank. However, they can get out of hand quickly if there is an over-abundant supply of food in the tank for them. Theres nothing more un-sightly than 4000 snails crawling over your beautiful planted tank.

As far as those fish go, I had a guppy we had to remove because he was chewing on smaller plants. I would worry about the swordtails, platys and mollys as they're vegatarians to the bone. They'll eat anything that's got plant in it.
 
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:mad: Why have I NOT read that ramshorn snails eat new vegetation? I do have a few (surprising since I have 5 loaches!) of them. I wasn't worried about them getting into the tank b/c so many pple have them and I've never read anything to disuade me from having them. I have read that MTS eat eggs but those that have ramshorn and MTS snails report co-existance.??? Time to re-check plant forum!

Anyone else have a view on all this?
 
:confused:
 
I don't know... The second month my 75 was set up, a few came in on some hornwart... they completely destroyed a rather large aponogeton that I had :mad: . Needless to say, I watch them closely.
 
Colombian ramshorns (a flat-spiraled Apple snail species) do eat plants.

Red ramshorn snails do not eat live plants. I have them in almost all of my planted tanks without any problems, and have had for decades..
 
My boyfriend's pleco munches on his plant sometimes. That could be your problem.
 
Colombian ramshorns and pond snails will reek havoc on a planted tank. As for the loaches, unless they're clown loaches they won't do a very good job cleaning out the snails. Also clown loaches will uproot all your plants rooting through the gravel for snails.
 
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