Re: [APD] On the subject of snails....

["Rory O'Brien" <rory_obrien at stonebow.otago.ac.nz>]

Hi Dave,

That's the question isn't it - which snails are truly plant-friendly. I had
an apple snail in there, very briefly, as it treated the tank like a salad
bar and quickly munched its way to devastation. They at least are easy to
catch ;-) It got re-housed to where it could only damage lettuce.

I had understood that ramshorns don't (generally) damage plants? (Although
Stuart mentioned that his did ?!) There are available locally here through
the hobby but yes, you are correct in that NZ takes a pretty firm line on
biosecurity (and rightly so) and a great many interesting beasties and
plants are just unavailable to us. There's no question of trying to get them
from overseas.

I think the general consensus of replies to my question came down in favour
of snails in the planted tank and I expect I'll risk some red ramshorns and
MTS's. I'll withhold calcium if things get out of control.

Thanks for the responses folks.

- Rory


on 09/11/05 12:21 PM, Dave Wilson at aqua_green at bigpond.com wrote:

> If you are going to use a snail make sure it wont hurt your plants.  I had
> ramshorns but was made to kill them by the local authorities.   If your from
> New Zealand you may have issues with the authorities and snails.   I have
> heard they are more strict than Australia.   Is this true?
>
> I have 4 species of native snails here in my aquarium plant ponds
> (Australia).   I did have Ramshorn and a pond snail from down south that
> carries larval stage of Liver fluke.   The Fisheries Dept (NT) closed me
> from selling plants until I killed the ramshorns and the pond snail.   I
> would also like to get rid of all the other snails in my ponds because some
> of the local native varieties eat plants.
> 
> If anyone has ideas apart from clown loach on how to rid vast areas of
> snails via a method that wont kill plants or fish I would be most
> appreciative.   We have tried copper, dichlorvos and chlorothalonil which
> are all nasty treatments I did not like using.   The chlorothalonil
> defoliated all the plants.
> 
> Some of the Australian snails from my ponds are pictured on the database at
> http://db.angfa.org.au in the gallery/animals section.
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Dave

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