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Re: Snails
Cookie, you are correct. The killie fry need to be
comfortably free swimming before they would be safe from
snails.
All snails are not alike. The small red or brown
ramshorn snails or the small pond snails (Physia?) are quite useful around fry
and even can be used in the planted, so called natural set-ups if they are not
too plentiful. All of these snails are easily introduced with plants. Starts can
be had for he asking.
The Malaysian livebearing or trumpet snails are
great at removing excess food. However they are very carnivorous and virtually
no killie eggs will be found in tanks with them. They hide out under the gravel
during the day providing the valuable service of turning over said gravel
which is good for plants in that they keep the substrate from getting
compacted or forming foul gas pockets. HOWEVER they multiply like crazy. Until
one comes back to a tank about an hour after lights out and discovers the
thousands of little cones now cruising up and down the tank glass, one will have
no idea how many of those little buggers there are. They are difficult to get
rid of short of nuclear bombing. Don't go out of your way to get
them.
David wood mentioned the considerable usefulness of
apple snails in generating infusoria for fry. They are prodigious eaters and can
convert a lot of veggie material to waste products usable by the protists or
infusoria. Putting then in a killie set-up to clean up left over food is like
bringing a tiger home to eat the mice. With the table scraps gone, they will
make short work of almost all plants - even Java fern. They can also be
used to generate the organics needed with greenwater cultures.There are
other large snails which also can be fed extra flakes, water plant trimmings,
zucchini, pea shells and so on to generate micro-cultures.
Small snails in with killies provide
a significant benefit in that they will scour the tank for left over brine
shrimp. Rotting brine shrimp seems to provide the perfect environment for a
velvet bloom and epidemic.
A couple of the snail sights suggested by list
members in previous postings included
I notice several of the links they offer are down
however.
A Google search would find some good info too. If
you search the archives of this list or the aquarium plant mailing list, you
will find a growing literature also on snails.
All the best!
Scott
So should you
not put snails in fry tanks until the eggs hatch
...
References: