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Snail relief
Subject: snails and more snails
> My bottom workers a
> 1 SAE (or is it SEA), it is a flying fox (a real one too), 2 ca
> good bunch of Ghost Shrimp, and what used to be a few snails. W
> after a half hour I noticed a big pile of snails; the pile was b
> the one disc I put in. Now for my question, Clown loachs: I w
> of adding about four or five small ones to work on controlling
> population of snails. I would like to hear from anyone or all w
> dealings with the Clown loachs, good or bad.
Clown Loaches will definitely reduce (or eliminate) your snail
population. But if the snails are not bothering the plants, you
can also simply reduce the population by putting in a piece of
food at lights out, and collecting the snail pile a couple of
hours later after they gather to feed.
I like Clown Loaches very much and have often kept them in planted
tanks, but they _will_ do some plant damage. They sometimes make
u shaped holes in Echinodorus and Anubias leaves, and they are
_death_ on Anubias flowers. They will eat Anubias flowers down to
the stalk in a matter of hours after the flower has opened.
Still, except for the flower issue, the damage to plants is
minimal, and many people enjoy them enough to be willing to accept
the trade off.
> I have a sand bottom over a mud pie mix of soil, peat, latrite,
> a bottom bed of gravel. ave the CL dug into the sand in anyone'
They are not really diggers. They will sift through the srface of
the gravel the way Corys do, but will not disturb lower layers.
> Ms. KR: I do and don't miss the weather in Mass.. How's Bertha?
By the time Bertha got here, she had pretty much blown herself
out. We had _very_ heavy rain all day, but we regulaarly have
stronger winds with thunder storms in the afternoon. This morning
the sun is smiling again!
Karen Randall
Aquatic Gardeners Assoc.
Boston, MA