snails for clown food?

[ClownMob]

Hi there loachlovers, I read more than I post here, excellent info and kudos on a great forum.

have a question about feeding my clown loaches. I've got a group of 5 clowns in my 75g tank, and they do live with an Oscar.

here's a pic, dont think I have posted my tank here before:

clowns range in size 3-4", Oscar bout 9" at this point.
they have grown up with O for about a year now, and have lots of hideouts and are way too fast for him. also when they gain some size I have plans to move them into a larger tank of their own.

anyway, thats the set-up, enuff backstory.

have read about clowns enjoying snails, but they can get out of control and so forth. my clowns eat sinking pellets mostly, and I was wondering about varying their diet a bit.

are snails good for clowns? something it would be good to give them, or not necessary?

and if so, a particular kind of snail that doesn't reproduce so much, or between O and clowns that wouldn't be a problem?

thanks for any info, good knowledge swimming around in here. really dig my clown loaches, real fun fish.

[NancyD]

Oh yes, we used to feed little ramshorn snails as a treat for both clowns & cichlids (firemouths & blue acaras). The loaches suck out the snails but the cichlids chewed the shells & spit them out. You would probably want to remove the "empties" as they can harden your water but they'll be easy to see on your nice black gravel. Just be sure they are from a clean source, they can harbor diseases. The only ones that could live for long in the same tank were mts, the little pointy ones that live in the gravel but they never got out of control.

Nancy

[Xirxes]

I take great precautiouns with my tank (R.O. DI water, 7.0 pH no ammo/Nitrate/ite) in my 30G tank. And do not expect any more illness to come out of that tank.

I am currently quarantining (sp?) the second of my clown loaches, in a 10G.

My question is, after i transfer this clown tot he big tank, i will have two 2.5 inch clowns in the tank. Are they too small to be eating snails? I would like to use the quarantine ten as a snail raising tank while its not in useas a hospital, but dont know if they can eat snails yet.

With wafers, flakes and bloodworms, i think that snails would complete their well rounded diet.

[shari]

My littlest clown is barely 2" and he is the one I usually see running around with a snail stuck to his mouth...he likes them, but the other two I haven't seen eating any. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't, just that I haven't seen it.

I've seen them go after 1.5" apple snails, too. To the point where the snail is spending so much time getting rolled around the tank that it can't eat. They couldn't get it out of the shell, but any parts that were sticking out they'd grab if he didn't close up in time...