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The lowly Gastropod
Okay you bunch of snail bashers/smashers/crushers<g>.
No snail (pond,MTS, Ramshorn)has ever eaten any of my plants and I have had
many a species(200 +). If you suspect they are eating your plants, check
elsewhere. Your plants are rotting or half dead already if the snails are
eating them. And if your plants are not doing well, just sent across the
mail, etc snails will nibble them. If you have well growing plants, no
snail(of the above mentioned) will eat them or harm your plants. If you have
rotting plants, new plants, new changes added to your tank, then often it is
the changes, not the snail, that is putting those holes in your leaves or
causing those suspected problems.
If you wish to breed fish, breed fish. Planted tanks are fine for breeding
with the "hands off" approach. A clean plant-less tank is better if you are
really trying to breed the fish though.
I have not had any known parasite(s) infect my fish since I started keeping
plants. Those live worms on the other hand, certainly have and do carry
parasites. When I stopped feeding those the death rate went to zero and has
remained there to this day discounting suicide and heat stroke(it got to be
108 F/43 C here the other day). Snails and more snail are in my tanks and
come in on plants from other folks and from ponds. Algae for that matter
too. A good environment will go a long, long way. I recently had a tank semi
finished for about 4 weeks with only a few plants and a horde of snails. I
did not feed this tank at all. The very few plants are still doing well.
Now why I may be the exception (for years and years), why haven't I had all
this horrid troubles these snails are suppose to represent? My tanks do
great, my fish are very healthy, little to no algae and a few incidental
breedings(Ok so they are cichlids). Snails will eat eggs, so will fish.
Should we get rid of the fish too? After having the fish in there to eat the
snails they are easy to remove were as the snails are not. It should be
noted that I have not had SAE's,shrimps, or barbs etc ..........just snails
and otto cats as my algae controllers for many years.
They have done great work over the years and have been given a bad name.
They can be a pest in some cases but they are great for planted tanks.
Regards,
Tom Barr defender of the lowly snail