Well three weeks ago I set up a 10 gallon with one male betta five whitecloud minnows and a gold colored mystery snail. Tank was cycled with filter media from my 35 gallon and never did show any ammonia on nitrite. I am testing every other day to make sure it actually is cycled. Currently though no ammonia or nitrite. Anyways of the five whiteclouds I have lost two (one I suspect to the Betta) and this morning my wife found the betta dead with half his head eaten by the snail. The only symptom the betta showed was a little translucent white on his snout last night. Past that there have been no signs of disease. Anyone have an idea as to happened.......age, disease, or killer snail??? :look:
Killer snail??
- Thread starter judobadger
- Start date
Dangerdoll
Global Moderator
I would say it's definitely not the snail that killed him (or them) but that they died and the snail did as snails do.... cleaned up the mess.... or started to. How the fish died, I can't say but you already noticed there was something amiss with the betta....I can only assume it was a quick one...
Snails are cleaners--eating dead fish is part of their 'job', but they don't have any means of killing a healthy fish. Some gastropods--conchs, particularly--can--they are armed with a bone spear they thrust through fish to kill them. But, conchs are 100% SW organisms--and FW snails just don't have the ability.
At a guess--the tank was never cycled, so ammonia levels proved lethal for the fish.
At a guess--the tank was never cycled, so ammonia levels proved lethal for the fish.
sorry...my humor is a little odd...I was just kidding about the snail, but I am serious about the deaths. Didn't know if I may be missing something. Water parameters are fine as far as I can test (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, gh/kh, and chlorine) and there are no signs of the common diseases or bacterial infection. The only clue I have is the whitish...almost chalklike coler of the betta's snout. He did seem a little letargic, but for a betta that isn't out of character.
Currently no ammonia or nitrite so this can't be the case.
judobadger said:
I don't know much about bettas because ive only been keeping them for about 2 months but both the ones i bought (few weeks apart) had a little white spot on thier snouts when i bought them. I assume it was due to lack of care befor i bought them. Anyways i gave both of mine some salt when i first got them and the white spot went away in about 2 days. Since then they have been very healthy as far as i can tell. If you get another one try treating it with salt befor adding it to you main tank.