Escargot for Discus

[strawberryblonde]

Observed the most interesting behavior in my big tank this week - my Discus have acquired a taste for baby snails!

I purchased and added about 20 new plants last month. Did my usual bleach dip to kill off anything nasty, but apparently one teensy little snail survived. It's an ugly little thing, but it isn't eating too many leaves on the plants so I've ignored it.

Went away on vaca last week and came home to a big "snot ball" at the top of the water and at the base of the filter. Wasn't sure what it was, but I was tired and went to bed thinking that I'd deal with it in the morning.

Sure enough, it was gone in the morning! I had visions in my head of it being some sort of discus slime ball that had collected while I was away and got caught, forming that weird slimy ball shape.

All was well enough till Monday evening. During my usual water change I observed my two eruption leopards tilting sideways in front of one of my sword plants, then darting madly into the leaves. They'd back away, tilt again and dart again. I wondered if it was some form of flashing and if maybe they were feeling itchy and irritated because of the length of time between water changes.

I continued to check on them all day Tuesday out of concern for the odd behavior and then Tuesday night I realized what they were up to.

The newly born snails were all attached to the leaves! They were so miniscule that I had to use a magnifying lens to even see them, but by golly, my leopards knew they were there. They were patiently hunting them all down and eating them!

As of today the snails seem to be too big to be tasty anymore, or maybe too crunchy for discus to enjoy them, so I just spent an hour swiping out as many as I could find. They're still less than a 1/4" long so I'm sure I missed a lot and will be spending days cleaning these ugly little buggers out of my tank.

Too bad they didn't stay small enough for the discus to polish them all off, huh?

[Phillydubs]

That's quite interesting and must have been a sight to see!!!

[rickztahone]

I really hate those small snails. They will be EVERYWHERE soon. I had to get some assassin snails to clear them up once. If I were you, I'd hunt down as many of those small sacks of eggs as possible and try to eradicate the problem now.

[LizStreithorst]

I can't believe the Discus found them appetizing.

[strawberryblonde]

I agree Liz, never in my wildest imagination would I have thought that discus would eat snails! I guess when they're really fresh and new the shells are soft and maybe they taste like chicken?

Ricardo, I think I may end up following in your footsteps if I can't find all of the babies in the next week. I have no idea what type of snail they are, but that one snot ball produced hundreds of the little buggers. Definitely not trumpet snails thank goodness!

[Solid]

I wish my discus would eat my snails! I ussually pick out 5-20 every water change. I think they are somewhat beneficial as they eat any food that might get under plants and crevasses but still annoying. I have tried crushing a few and trying to feed the discus, hoping that if they got the taste for them they might kill them, but no luck.

[Pardal]

Clown loach will take care of the snails really quick, just they are not quite from the same biotype and , for some pure-ish people my find them out of place
But you can always put them in another tank after a two of three months.

[dagray]

Take your finger and smash the snails against the glass.... discus will come up and eat the snails

[Mgus]

I really hate those small snails. They will be EVERYWHERE soon. I had to get some assassin snails to clear them up once. If I were you, I'd hunt down as many of those small sacks of eggs as possible and try to eradicate the problem now.

Do go through the same qt process with the assassin snails as you would fish. My discus have been eating them in the tank but my sump is full of them.

[Woodduck]

I have one planted tank that has snails. Just plain old common "pond" snails. Every morning when the lights kick on there is always a bunch of them that have come to the top. Also at the top are my Discus from that tank. They are there because they know I'm going to crush as many as I can reach with one finger and that's how many get eaten. I can have Hikari FBWs in there at the same time (did it just once as a test) and they want the snails. Like someone eating sunflower seeds, they suck 'em in, roll 'em around and then spit out the shell frags. These snails have been through the QT so it's safe to have them in there. Like Mgus said, they get in the sump, but I just feed those when I change the pads.