Colomesus asellus help needed.

[dannydee]

Hello people,

I'm looking for some advice on the South American puffer. I have been breeding pond snails in a separate tank, so I have a steady supply of them for the arrival of the puffers, which I ordered awhile ago. Thing is - I now need the tank which the snails are in. I can't buy another as I simply don't have the room.
I'm aware that even with snails in their diet, their 'teeth' will need trimming from time to time but what if they don't have snails at all?? Can they be successfully kept with feeding them a varied diet but without the snails??

Slightly concerned,

Dan

[J-P]

you can.. but it is not wise to do so.

What is going into your snail breeder tank?

[Pufferpunk]

You can easily breed snails in a bucket. I rarely fed my SAPs/modestus snails though & did the trimming about every 4 months.

[dannydee]

Thanks folks for the hasty replies.

J-P; the male and dominant female Dicrossus filamentosus in my South American community tank paired up and now have spawned. So I want the snail breeder tank to hopefully hatch the eggs and raise the fry.

Pufferpunk: I did think about using a bucket but then I would need to plug in another heater (for optimum snail production), as my flat is pretty cold. Since I already have a few tanks, I don't really fancy this option. So if you rarely fed yours snails, I'm going to sack breeding them. They will still get a few from time to time that come from the other tanks but I'll mostly feed them freeze-dried krill, frozen shrimp etc.

Just out of interest Pufferpunk, what did you mainly feed yours??

[Pufferpunk]

Live blackworms & F-D plankton.

[dannydee]

Thanks Pufferpunk.

J-P why do you say it isn't wise not to feed them snails?

[J-P]

Their teeth grow quite quickly and there is always an inherent danger when doing a tooth trim. It takes time and practice. Forgetting to do it only complicates / compounds the issue. The easiest was to deal with the problem is to avoid it from the start.

I asked what was going into the snail tank because even if there are fish in there you still might be able to breed the snails (depending on the fish).

[dannydee]

Ahhhh I see, good idea but Ideally, I don't want any snails in with the fry.

You are right about the best way to deal with a problem is to avoid it in the first place but I am an avid fish keeper and I'm confident that although I'll not be providing the SAPs with a daily dose of snails, they will still be kept in the best of conditions.

[RTR]

I am hard-nosed on SAPs. I would not keep them at all if I could not provide them with a diet primarily of snails (>90%, better 95%).