My gravel ate my mystery snail.

mvigor

mvigor

Aquarium Hobbyist
Mar 24, 2005
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Lunchlady land
www.vigorfamily.com
:duh: :bowing:

The mystery snail in my in-wall 20-high tank died without explanation. I didn't notice that he was dead for at least 24 hours, maybe even 48 hours. By the time I found him his shell was empty except for the trap door part. All soft tissue was gone and there was no ammonia spike...reading zero.

It seems that my UGF bio-filter bacteria stepped up to the plate and completely consumed a snail. That was convenient.
 
Yeah, I guess it was probably a cory, but the snail looked so undisturbed...like he had laid down to die and then I found him in the same position with his body missing.

Maybe it was some kind of alien abduction. :joe:

(P.S. I am now ROTFL because I see that the keyboard shortcut to make the alien UFO smilie come up is : joe : LOL!!!)
 
yeah, once snails die the muscle that holds their little trapdoor closed (the operculum) relaxes and it's no problem for a hungry or just interested fish to pull the body out and eat it. the bacteria deal with the ammonia spike from the decomp, but they don't actually break the flesh down. if the fish got to it fast enough, there wasn't time for it to start to rot.
 
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