I started out with 3 snails, they laid alot of eggs, over the last few week I have noticed that the new small snails are being attracted to the intake of the power fillters and getting suck out of thier shells. Should I do anything to decrease it or is it ok to just let the snails kill themselfs.
Snails are too stupid to know the difference. The ones that get sucked up are reduced to fish food pretty much instantly. but if you want to keep your snails you will need to add some sort of strainer to the intake.
yea, they are just walking around loking for food and then got stuck because of the suction. the die then get sucked into the filter where they start to rot. i would cover the filter intake
Well, nothing really to do with filters, but one of my apple snails apparently commited suicide.
He pulled his whole body out of the shell and died. No idea why
I'm not anywhere near an expert, but snails and frogs are my two dearest loves. Sounds like your snail tore it's collumelar muscle which is basically the only thing that holds the snail inside its shell. When the muscle tears the snail will literally walk out of its shell when it tries to move and in the process sometimes its lung will collapse. Occasionally a snail can tear this muscle but the lung and siphon remain functioning for days, but all snails who tear the collumelar will eventually die. For all that I've read, there isn't a quick or easy reason as to why this happens.
I actually had my power head suck my snails out of their shells also. They were very small and it turns out the powerseep 228 has a suction near it's flow control wheel. The snail crawled to it and all I found was a shell.
Why not take some filter foam (if you are worried about the snails) and cut a slit into it. Then stick it over the end of the filter intake. The snails will probably climb all over it eating biofilm that accumulates but they should get sucked inside.
I have lots of nice snails in my tank and when I am cleaning the filter media I always find some living in there.
