pond snails as food for other inverts?

G

gocrow77

AC Members
Apr 15, 2008
9
0
0
Ok, so I have pond snails right.... I got them I am sure from some plants I goot off AB I got around 3-4 months ago. I have kept the population "under control" by smooshing them when I do tank checks - usually if I walk by and see some on the glass I will stop and smoosh the ones I see. At any rate this is my cherry shrimp tank - a 55 gal. I also have a few mystery snails and an ABN in there. Anyway, I have not been removing the smooshed pond snails because the mystery snails and shrimp seem to find the within a few minutes and enjoy a good feast on the remains. The mystery snails of course snack on them in just a few bites, but the cherry shrimp will even chase one another off from the free meal. Is there any problem in the future anyone can foresee with this? Of course they still recieve the usual invert foods and stuff this is just a bonus treat for them. They certainly seem to enjoy them and I have even considered a 10 gal set to culture them for food/an occsional treat for my cichlids as well. I just want to avoid and potential problems that continuing to do this might bring up. Thanks in advance for any advice!!

Aimee
modify_inline.gif
 
Other than the fat content of the snails, like already mentioned, the shrimp love it I would think. My only problem with feeding something like snails to snails is I think it might cause something bad in the future-kinda like mad cow. Am I just paranoid?
 
Snails are notorious for carrying parasites. But, if you have infected snails, whatever they are carrying is probably already distributed throughout your system, so no use worrying now. If you haven't seen any unusual mortality or sickness among your shrimp and mystery snails, I see no reason to stop.
 
I ALWAYS squish pond snails as I see them in my invert and community tanks, there are no issues that I am aware of. I look at it as a free food source.
 
Cool, good to know I am not the only one, lol. I figured that as a fellow invert they are probably high in the very nutrients that would be "good" for the other snails and members of the invert family. It's not usually more than 3-5 smaller ones and they are "found" and consumed almost immeadiately, they go nuts over them. Thank so much for the replies and insight guys!!

Aimee
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom