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Snails
>
> From: Stephen.Pushak at hcsd_hac.com
> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 95 13:32:40 PDT
> Subject: snails
>
> I have a lot of snails and I'm wondering if they're good or bad for plants.
> There are two kinds: ones that are kinda brown upto about a cm in length and
> the shell is a spiral, cone shape. These look like pretty ordinary type snails
> and don't reproduce as often as the other ones. They are small, 1mm -3mm in
> size, semi-transparent shells in a spiral, disk shape. I can't observe any
> obvious damage to the plants but I'm not sure. Does anybody know the names of
> these snails? Sometimes I find a fairly substantial egg cluster on the top or
> bottom of a leaf. I think they mostly eat algae. Are they good or bad? Are
> snail species competitive? Can some kinds compete with more beneficial types
> and even kill them off?
>
> - Steve
I think your cone shaped snails are the so-called common pond snails.
According to what I read, they can be a problem if they grow too large or
if they get numerous. I always pick them out and crush them and feed the
meaty part to my angels. The disk shaped ones are probably ramhorns. They
are supposed to eat alage and not live plants. I have a few of those. I
am getting two dozen Malayan Trumpet snails next week because I was told
they are most benificial for a planted tank.
John Y. Ching (jyching at watnow_uwaterloo.ca) |
Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Lab |
Department of Systems Design Engineering |
University of Waterloo, Canada |