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Re: Live Foods Digest V3 #172
In the venerable Innes Book they allude to apple snails as "infusoria
snails" because of their ability to convert large quantities of veggie
material to material useful for protists (the so called infusoria) and the
items they feed upon.
We once bought several snails as mystery snails. (I guess you can't believe
everything you read on a sales label.) They spawned and spawned in a well
lighted, well planted tank. At a certain critical point the plants
dramatically and suddenly disappeared. It turns out that the snails billed
as the relatively benign mystery snails, were another in that genus. All of
the rest are voracious herbivores.
Stuck with a good batch of expensively raised apple snails (someone actually
seriously suggested selling them to a restaurant as escargot) we felt the
need to put them to work and get some of the value back for all those
plants. They did yeoman service as greenwater generators feeding on odd
leaves and plant trimmings, a few trout pellets, peas and so on.. However,
at a certain population density, they also have a profound proclivity for
wandering out of the tank, out of the fish room and (if they still have
enough slime for a trail) into the living room. Cover them. :)
All the best!
Scott
> From: George Slusarczuk ..
> Snails in a pure Chlamydomonas culture -- after you add the snails the
> culture is not likely to remain pure. After all, you can not sterilize
> the snails :-))
> > Ideally, I would like to place some snails in a Chlamydomonas pure
> > culture, a non-pure culture of some euglenoid and, for a nicer view of
> > my waterfleas, also into the Daphnia magna and Daphnia pulex cultures.
> >
> > Can anyone think of a reason why placing snails in these systems may
> > *NOT* be a good idea?
... Godo