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Re: Snails (and SAEs, too)



> I've heard that certain kinds of fish eat snails. Is it loaches? What 
> other eating habits do I need to know about loaches? Do they like to 
> eat fry? 

Steve,
Botia loaches really eat snails, and there should be at least 2-3 species
of them easily available. They like green food, and I have heard few times
that they might destroy plants, but that hasn't ever happened with my
school of 6 reticulated loaches (B. lohachata). They like at least zucchini,
cucumber, spirulina flakes, bottom feeder tablets and living earthworms.

> Subject: Re: SAEs
> >Uncle Ned says they are quite small (under 1"). 

Under 1" SAEs are REALLY young! Luckily they are very hardy fish. If
those babies are recently caught, everything should be ok, but if they
are from last year's broods, they have to be starved and stunted. It
is also rather difficult to tell a real SAE from its lookalikes when
they are that small.

> I put some sort of little alage eaters in the tank that I picked up here at
> a local pet shop. Not sure excatly what they are yet as they were sold as
> Alage Eaters. Need to go over the description of the SAEs and releated that
> I have. From what I can tell they definitly are NOT SAEs but they are
> cleaning up the tank.

Allen, could you email me a description of these fish? I'm always trying
to learn more about algae eaters. I do hope that they are something
more interesting than chinese AEs.

Liisa Sarakontu                     INTERNET:    lsarakon at hila_hut.fi
Helsinki University of Technology   WWW homepage http://www.hut.fi/~lsarakon/