Snails are good!

[ahmandi2]

Vacuumed the tank this afternoon and grabbed about 10 wee snails, crushed them into snail paste, and tossed it back in the tank. Danios swarmed on them, but some fell to the gravel uneaten. A minute later, the loaches started doing their "I smell food!" dance, and got closer and closer to the pile of smooshed snail. Almost immediately they found a whole snail and inhaled the whole thing? I didn't see it up close, but husband said "whoa, they just eat the whole thing at once"....so YAY they finally know that snails are food!!!
I'm stoked

[Crissyloach]

That is great. The snails that I had were way to hard to crush. It took the loaches a little over a month to find them. Of course as they took their time to figure this out, the snail population got larger and larger. I also had very small gravel as my substrate, and you would only see the snails out at feeding time. It was almost disgusting, because all of a sudden, you would see the grave rise up above them, and out comes the snail...It looked AWFUL- mostly because some of them were huge.

I guess that they did help in the way of keeping the algae under control. Loaches were happy once they figured this out

[ahmandi2]

Wow that sounds hideous the way you had your snails showing up all creepy. Blech! Lol but a funny story none the less
The loaches (and danios) have some work cut out for them. I'm guessing that there's 1000 or so of the snails in there. So to help them out, I stick the net down into the sub and stir up an inch or two from the bottom. Presto! Instant snail feast! They're also learning to love the net, since it brings them food....hmmm now that could be handy eventually.

[Crissyloach]

That is good. By the time mine figured that the little things that ate their food (a whole other story) tasted good, we had thousands of tiny little snails...blech. They were almost always in the gravel too, so it was hard to get them. I remember going to do a water change, and seeing them all! You would pick them all out, and them see more! (and more, and more!!!) It was gross, because the kind that we had would be almost dead until it was time to feed the fish. There were so many (I'm talking HUNDREDS), and they just appeared out of the gravel.

[starsplitter7]

You probably have MTS, which give birth to live young. They stay in the gravel, and turn it so you don't get dead pockets, which can be poisonous to you fish.

If you see these snails going up to the top of the tank in a group during the day, it means your tank is crashing. It has saved my fish many times.

I am one of the weird people who loves snails. I pick them all out of my dirty buckets to put them back in my tanks. They feed my fish, act as an early warning sign, clean the glass, eat extra food, and if you have lots, then you know you are overfeeding. Excellent tank workers.

[Crissyloach]

Yes, they are the ones. I have been reading up on them alot now. I dont have to many, because I had to upgrade my tank, and the only ones I have now are the ones who were in my caves when I moved them over. I also have more loaches now so they are almost never seen now.