khuli loaches and snails

R

richy

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Oct 12, 2004
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just a quick question about khuli loaches... do they eat snails? all the information i've been able to find snail eating loaches refers to either the clown loach or the yo yo loach, both of which i do not have in my tank. i do have two khuli's though. i also have some malaysian trumpet snails, which i absolutely adore compared to other snails (i keep another variety in there just to mix it up a little). i haven't seen too many of the mts around lately, and i'm wondering if the khulis are eating them, or if i'm just missing their noctural cycle.

any ideas? thanks.

rich
 
Loachs + Snails

The clown loach has a type of beek mouth which is used for cracking the
the shells of snails, im not to familiar with the khuli i tried to look up some of the feeding habits and couldnt find much but it sounds like if you used to see the snails on the tank and what not and now you dont it can only mean one thing.. Once they eat one of them the rest are basically in for it. Sorry to break it to ya but it dosent sound good for the snails is the khuli's belly a little more plump than usual. ?
 
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Kuhlis have very different mouths than clown loaches. I highly doubt kuhlis will hurt your snails. MTS spend a lot of time in the gravel and come out at night - you could try checking the tank out with a flashlight a few hours after lights out to see if they're out and about.
 
When I put in a big apple snail, I saw my dojo loaches trying to tip the thing over to get underneath, but he was a big one and they gave up, however I think a smaller one would have been fodder. I'd say its possible.
 
Khulies will eat snails. They will even gang up on smaller snails. They don't crack the shell, instead just digging the sift meaty part out. MTS have a tendancy to hide int he gravel during the day and come out in the dark, so you may not be seeing the full amount of MTS that you have. Try coming out at night after lights out and checking with a flashlight.
 
Agree, kuhli's will most definitely eat snails. I feed snails to my puffers, and it's a race to see who gets to them first--if it didn't involve tearing the tank apart, the kuhli's would be moved for this very reason. However--even with kuhli's and puffers, the tank has a thriving MTS population--they stay in the gravel during the day, come out at night. If I disturb the substrate, I find lots of them--and they are fodder if they don't get back in the gravel ASAP!
 
I had no idea!

Wow... I really do learn something every day. I had no idea a kuhli could hurt a snail - mine just has such a teeny little mouth and seems to find eating bits of sinking pellets a challenge, I couldn't see a snail ever being in danger.
 
my hope is that the khuli's didn't make a meal out of the mts. i did turn on a flashlight in the middle of the night and searched for the mts. i was able to find one of the larger ones (about 3/4") milling about the substrate, but not many more, and i know as a matter of fact that there were definitely more in there.

one other thing did strike me this morning tho... i did a very thorough cleaning of the gravel recently, so it's theoretically possible that i may have removed some of the food sources the mts relied on to sustain them. if that's the case, how would i restore it w/o overfeeding and severely changing the water quality?

rk
 
You would be surprised at how little food mts need to survive. They will probably be fine. If you want drop a [iece of cucumber or zuchinni in late at night and remove it in the morning. Chances are the snails will munch on it over night.
 
I've heard that the malaysian trumpet snails will eat the eggs of the ramshorn snails but not plants. Is this true and, if so, do you think my LFS will consider me completely barmy for asking for a couple of their MTS?
 
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