Nice article! Thanks for the link!
| QUOTE |
| Some species of snail are renowned as decorative plant eaters, however, in my opinion, only the pond snail should be regarded with any real suspicion in this regard. Most healthy aquarium plants produce cyanides and other poisons that prevent animals such as snails from making meals of them. The myth that snails can destroy your plants probably originates from observations of snails eating the leaves of plants that are already highly deteriorated or close to dying. At this point, the plant was probably doomed and at least the snails are preventing the plant from decomposing, a process that can potentially unbalance aquarium water chemistry. |
This is incorrect.
The "cana" apple snail, as well as the related haustrum (I think) are invasive species eating away the gulf of Mexico.
These snails get aboiut the size of a navel orange, and will mow your tank down overnight.
They are also aggressive enough to hunt doiwn and eat sluggish fish, getting to one that might be doing poorly, perhaps before you even noticed the fish was sick.
Also, it is hard to distinguish young Canas from adult Briggs.. so these fish get mixed up in snail shipments all the time..
At my local PetSmart, the snail tank is also the plant tank. Every once in a while, I will go in there, and notice their plants are being munched, and I will tell them, you have a cana in your tank.
Remember..
The net is a good source of information, but ALWAYS back what you read with your own research.
And even if 99% of what you read says one thing, do NOT disreguard the 1%..
Right now, I have a male in a tank, guarding a bunch of juvies that ARE NOT HIS.
He didn't raise them from infants, he has never been bred.
I introduced him to the the kiddos about 3 weeks ago.
I also have an adult female in that tank...
And everyone is getting along just fine.
But... You can't do that!!!!
Yes, you can.
Read, research, and then come to your own conclusions.
This article illustrates the danger of taking everytihng you find on the net as gospel.
OK.
Off my soapbox.
I agree with Bella, I got two apple snails and they eat everything whole plants that were healthy in my tank over a weekend including all my java moss, they ate all my java moss, There monsters :angry: :LOL: but I still think there fun to watch and I like snails, just not apple snails for a planted tank,
I liked the article bc it didn't paint snailies in the evil spawn of satan light that so many are prone to do.
I have had 4 "mystery" snails with my bettas in their divided sections for a few months now with java fern. i dunno what it is about the java fern, but they don't bother it. I dunno if I'd trust anything else in there, but maybe.
Also, I have Malaysian trumpet snails in all my sand substrate tanks, call me crazy..
but if you don't overfeed, they probably won't reproduce enough for a problem.. Everyone I have spoken to that has had them "overthrow" a tank, it was found that they were seriously overfeeding the tank.
Also, it's always good to have them with fish that MAY succeed in eating a few. My girlies do a decent job as do my angels and my malawi cichlids.
So, it isn't impossible to eat MTS.