Breeding snails in a puffer tank

[ashes]

Hello. I am setting up a 300 liter tank for freshwater puffers (and oto's). I'm not going to heavily stock the tank with animals.. maybe 6 dwarf puffers or 2-3 amazon puffers, 6 oto's, and maybe ghost shrimp (as food). I plan to establish the tank with live plants well before adding the puffers. Snails which come with the plants will have an opportunity to reproduce without predators for a month, or more. I would like to know if the puffers would eventually devastate the snail population in this tank, or if the snails would be able to reproduce enough to keep the puffers regularly fed with snails. I also plan to feed the puffers blood and black worms.

I would like to know this in advance, so I know whether I should also start a snail breeding tank.

I assume this comes down to the hunting skills of the puffers, not their appetite. I also imagine that adding puffers to a tank with 10,000 snails is the same thing as overfeeding.

Is it possible to achieve a balance, or should I setup a snail tank?

[jtbadco]

IMO the problem with trying to set up an in-tank food source is controlling access to food.

Puffers will tend to keep eating long after they should.

I suggest setting up a separate tank to breed live foods.

[Pufferpunk]

+1 &

Be sure to read the profiles on the puffers you are considering, in our Pufferpedia. Articles on the 2 species you've mentioned, in our Library.

[pufferpuggirl]

Go for a snail breeding tank

[RTR]

It is not very practical to attempt to culture prey items in the tank with the predators. the commonest outcome is that the predator eradicates the prey. That in itself can mean temporary overfeeding of the predator, and obviously low to no prey survival for fuhure multiplication of the prey.

Further, it may not be practical to co-house those two puffer species - both can do quite well in planted tanks with similar water conditions, but their feeding strategies are quite different. DPs are quite picky in that they slowly and carefully examine each food item at some length, while SAPs are more standard hunter-predators, checking out the prey quickly and without hesitation. I doubt that food access would be equal at all. Snails would likely be entirely consumed by the SAPs with the DPs getting few or none. DPs relish snails, but likely do not really require them for dental plate control, while SAPs have the highest requirement for snails to control dental plate growth of any puffer that I have kept. SAPs are hyperactive; DPs are reticent. I would not try to co-house these two species myself. Their lifestyles conflict.

HTH

[jtbadco]

the post said DP's or SAP's.....not together

[ashes]

Thanks for the replies.

It would be nice to have a balanced eco-system in the tank, but it wouldn't work since the puffers never stop eating. So I'll setup a separate snail tank. I found the Got Snails thread with some good info.

[Pufferpunk]

Snail breeding article in our Library, too.

[J-P]

my cherry red shrimp are breeding in my DP tank.. Adult cherries are too big for the DPs. Having said that, I have not seen any fry either. Over aggressive filter or being eaten, or improper set up?

Anyway, no your poodles will decimate any food source they will come into contact with. My SAPs went through 200+ shrimp and 100+ snails withing a couple weeks. In that case I think the timing was wrong. There are still some shrimp that survived the onslaught, but a few of 100's is a big difference.

If you don't have a separate tank, try a HOB breeder net for the snails. I have one on my SAP tank section and it is slow, but gives them snails regularly. They just consume more than I can breed at the moment (I have 5 snail breeder tanks and 3 SAPs, 2 DPs)..

[Pufferpunk]

Having said that, I have not seen any fry either.

Not quite a successful breeding plan, huh?

Poodles?

[pufferpuggirl]

I've got several different types of shrimp in my DP tank. At first they did try to eat the cherry shrimp, but they must have given up because I'm actually seeing shrimplettes now. I also breed cherry shrimp, and snails, in with my Congo puffer who just seems to put up with them, but doesn't try to eat them.

I've got oodles of cherry shrimp, they just keep breeding!

[J-P]

Poodles?

That was yours from last year

[jeromecarlyoung]

i used to have a DP which ate snails only, 2-3 small snails a day. That would take a lot of breeding. I used to go to my LFS and collect their pest snails. The trouble is that even with a quarantine tank I had other things taking a lift with the snails; Leeches. My Oto had a Fish lice which has now killed the fish so not good all round. Maybe have snails as a treat but otherwise use the frozen stuff.
Also, you can try to breed live Daphnia as this can be a good treat; they breed freely in the snail tank. Have two lots of Daphnia in case of a population crash which can sometimes happen.
I still have my DP but I do wonder if it is the fact that I have one DP which makes it a fussy eater.
Question- If I had a few DPs, would they be more willing to eat frozen due to competition from eachother??

-Jerry
PS- Sorry about the 1st draft; half asleep....zzz...

[Pufferpunk]

I have found this to be true, even getting them to eat flake food in this manner.

[jeromecarlyoung]

Flake??
-Jerry