Guilty Conscience

brittanyd0203

brittanyd0203

AC Members
Mar 30, 2009
232
0
0
Vienna, WV
I have my dwarf puffer that I've had for almost a month now and I feed her pond snails a couple times a week. When I put them in the tank though and see her starting to hunt them and eventually kill them, I feel guilty. Does anyone else have this problem?
 
Ummm...I don't feel guilty feeding my ramshorns and MTS to my assassin snails. I had to think this one...Which of the two is more expensive? That pushes me to feed my assassins the coveted "pests".
 
I used to squash the pest snails in my 30g, but eventually I started to think of them as 'part of the family' and felt bad about it - except when they get it into the filter tubing and affect the flow!

I feel sort of irrational; but when you think about it, pond snails are not so different from the snails that many of us keep, look after, and feel sad about if they are sick or die.

At least the pond snails will have a quick death; and they might get eaten by something else if they were out in nature anyway.

And your puffer has to eat.
 
I feed excess mystery snail/brigg clutches to the assassin snails. About 100+ a week or so, is better than constantly purchasing pest snails or getting them from a LFS/petstore.
 
Most of the time I feed my puffer thawed frozen bloodworms which she loves but I understand that they need snail shells in order to file their beaks. I've noticed though that even if I put very tiny snails in (smaller than her eye) that she still just sucks the poor little snail out of its shell and wants nothing to do with the shell. She is very entertaining when she hunts despite the outcome for the little snails.
 
I feel guiltier when I eat bacon as pigs are actually quite intelligent animals that are at least as smart as a dog. Yep, I feel guilty almost every morning!
 
You have a choice between 'being cruel' to the snails, or being cruel to the puffer. Pond snails reproduce so quickly, because in the wild, they get eaten quickly. They have to keep up. It's better to feed puffer than to let either the puffer or the snail starve to death.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom