The Malaysian Trumpet Snail

[judge6266]

Are Malaysian Trumpet Snail (MTS) a good feeder snail for small puffers (figure 8 is what I have in Mind), I seem to find a lot of conflicting info about MTS some say their shells are too thick and small puffers can eat them and in fact might break their teeth trying, other say they are great for puffers due to their small size and ease of breeding, I have some in my tanks already with cichlids and the cichlids eat them here and there and keep the numbers reasonable but I was wondering if I could feed them to a figure 8 puffer and is it worth breeding them as a feeder.

[~reefchik~]

They are considered much too hard shelled for any puffer. Pond snails and ramshorns are best but I think there might be other small species (as long as they are not too hard for your fingers to crush, probably ok for your puffs).

Just last night I crushed several ramshorns for my F8s and since they relished that, I thought well let's try a MTS. Ha...I would have needed a hammer to break it. Furgeddaboutit

[J-P]

~reefchik~ hehe you're catching on

just don't cut yourself on those shell fragments. They can be VERY sharp. That is why I use 2 spoons to crush my larger snails.

[xrayjeeper83]

x3, to hard and can possible crack a tooth

[~reefchik~]

+1 on using a tool to crush them. This is the first time I'd done it, and to be honest it skeeved me out pretty bad.
What kind of musher am I to raise snails for food and then find it repugnant to kill them to feed? Sheesh....

[J-P]

think of it as "chumming the water"

[JRC3]

Every time I picked up snails to stock my snail tank for breeding and feeding I made extra sure to go through them and check for MTS'. Twice I found some dinky little babies and disposed of them. I mean I don't want an outbreak of pest snails in my pest snail tank do I?

[J-P]

it doesn't really matter.. but yes seperate them by hand. As long as you don't have assassins in there you'll be ok

[RTR]

Every time I have had mixed snails in a tank, one ends up dominating. Despite what you may see on-line, for me it varies with the particular tank and its handling. But I want snails breeder tanks tp be pure strains -why waste food and space on snails you will not use for food?

And no, I never use MTS as puffer food. The shells are much too hard.

[JRC3]

...I mean I don't want an outbreak of pest snails in my pest snail tank do I?

See what I get for being a smart@ss...I just found a ramshorn in my community tank. I had to have carried it over from my breeding tank as a baby and he was 2 or 3x larger than the ones In my breeder. I'm hoping it was the only one and it hasn't laid any eggs yet. Oh well, I might have to get an assassin snail for that tank.

[J-P]

crush it and feed it to the puffers

extra snails are always a good thing.. I only have 3 SAPs and 5 breeder tanks for snails.. I am running out