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Took some pics of my mystery snails feeding strategies..
Mystery snails are pretty safe for most aquarium plants but one thing they love is Duck Weed. I was curious though how they ate it. Being as large as they are its not like they can crawl along the duck weed and eat it. It turns out they have 2 strategies. The first is to use the container wall as a support, hang upside down and using their small mouth suck in a duck weed plant. The second is they literally gather the duck weed with their foot. When I first saw this I though hmm,.. thats no where near its mouth? what gives here...why are they doing this? Then I noted that process slimes up the leaves and they clump together. This slime is heavier than water...so the clumps sink.The snails can then eat them. Its a pretty cool system to watch..I don't know if its something that evolved as a feeding strategy but its definitely a process here I note in multiple tanks with Duck weed.
Mystery snails are pretty safe for most aquarium plants but one thing they love is Duck Weed. I was curious though how they ate it. Being as large as they are its not like they can crawl along the duck weed and eat it. It turns out they have 2 strategies. The first is to use the container wall as a support, hang upside down and using their small mouth suck in a duck weed plant. The second is they literally gather the duck weed with their foot. When I first saw this I though hmm,.. thats no where near its mouth? what gives here...why are they doing this? Then I noted that process slimes up the leaves and they clump together. This slime is heavier than water...so the clumps sink.The snails can then eat them. Its a pretty cool system to watch..I don't know if its something that evolved as a feeding strategy but its definitely a process here I note in multiple tanks with Duck weed.
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