Snails - what do they eat

[desley]

Hi,

I have 2 yellow snails which I have in my tank now. I had a heap of those ugly black snails and with the last gravel clean (2 days ago) I got rid of all of them.
Now I am noticing more fish feaces on the bottom the tank.
I don't know if it due to the removal of all of the snails or the fact that I am now adding peas for the fish to munch on and they are just having more droppings.

Will my snails eat the feaces. I took out a bit of water and added fresh water in an attempt to stir it up a bit so it would go into the filter and then I washed out the sponge.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Desley

 

[tstenback]

No snails will not eat feces. Here is a link that may help Snails And yes feeding the fish shelled peas will make them produce more droppings. HTH

 

[Tempestuousfury]

There are no animals that eat feces. Bacteria break it down, but they're not animals, IMO. I've read that ghost shrimp do, but I wouldn't take stock in that.

Herbivores tend to produce lots of waste, so the peas must have caused the increase. Removing fish shouldn't cause this.

Snails do eat algae, and mine likes the algae tablets I drop in daily.

 

[desley]

Hi guys,

THANK YOU.

I read the link for snails .. very interesting and helpful. I did remove all the brown snails I saw on one day so I hope this gets rid of them for a while. As for my 2 yellow snails I hope they at least keep check on the uneaten food.

Looks like I should slow down on the pea feedings and also extra gravel cleans for a while.

Can you do too many gravel cleans ? Like 2 times a week .. would that be too much until I get rid of the extra feaces.

Thanks again
Desley

 

[Mustang5L5]

There are no animals that eat feces.

Blind Cave Tetras eat Bat feces......i think.



Anyway, i have a wide variety of snails in my tank. After dark i toss in 1-2 algea wafers and they always chow chow down on those

 

[StevieJack]

There are no animals that eat feces.

I seen my dog eating some the other day.

j/k

Stevie

 

[Feline]

I think bacteria (or microorganisms) will eat faeces! So don't worry too much about it... 2 times a week gravel cleaning is a bit too much IMO, but if it's only until u get rid of the faeces, then it should be fine... just make sure you don't do change the water too much and not at the same time

 

[Adrinal]

As far as I know there are plenty of snails that DO eat fecese... only we don't call it that... detrius is the term, and its the same thing. There are herbivor, carnivor, and omnivore snails... I know nothing about FW snails though...