A. cacatuoides and pond snails

[Kristinann]

I'm in the midst of re-doing my tank, and recently discovered some snails- pretty sure they are pond or bladder snails. They aren't a huge bother to me, but I would still rather them not be there. I plan on getting some apistogramma cacatuoides when all is said and done. I was wondering if they would eat any of the pond snails. What do you think?

[Piranha86]

I don't think they would eat that many. I should add that I've seen cories eat them...

[cokeeffe]

I've kept A. Cacatuoides for a while now with trumpet snails, and they don't even acknowledge them. A better choice for snail removal would be clown loaches, if your tank is big enough, or other botia loaches if you're more space limited. That being said, cacatuoides are some of the most rewarding fish i've kept...tons of color, tons of personality, and they breed very easily in a range of conditions.

[jetajockey]

my jd fry and ebjd absolutely destroy any pond snails that I put in the tank. I attempted it earlier today to try to deal with some algae and yeah..no.

[Kristinann]

I only got up to around 11 snails. Threw out a bunch of hornwort and now am down to three that I know of, though of course that number will go back up. I don't like the idea of pulling them out and throwing them away, I feel like it is very direct murder lol. Though I'm not sure why I feel differently about throwing away the hornwort that they are all on lol. I'm thinking I might just get an assassin snail or two, as the tank is only 20 gallons. Since I actually want Malaysian trumpet snails, I was going to get the assassins anyways to keep MT snail population in check.