The Puffer Forum

So, from time to time I notice an empty snail shell, and then see what was once a snail caught on a plant, or on the bottom on the aquarium. When snails die do they just fall out of their shells, or would something need to be pulling them out? The only thing that comes to mind would be these two rather large ghost shrimp which are in there, but the snail population seems to be going down, they aren't even laying eggs on the glass anymore... or maybe they are and something is eating the eggs.

The aquarium contains:
4 adult guppies and 3 babies
2 adult endlers and 7 older offspring (maybe a month or two old)
2 cory cats
3 kuhli loaches
4 cherry barbs
5 neon tetras
2 ghost shrimp
and god knows how many RCS

I'm not certain about kuhli loaches, but loaches in general are known snail eaters, so that could be your suspect. I wouldn't be so sure that the others weren't eating the snails and/or eggs too. If you really want to get a snail population going, you're best doing it in a tank on their own, with nothing else to bother them or eat their eggs.

whats rcs?

I believe that may be Red Cherry Shrimp

ooh right!

thought may have been some type of crab!

pufferpuggirl wrote:I believe that may be Red Cherry Shrimp

Yes, yes it is...

The snails that are usually pulled out are generally the largest ones (1" diameter or so), and the loaches are pretty diminutive. They might be 3-4", but they are like eels... if they were normal fish length for their hight they would be like 1" tops.

Whenever I see the empty shell, and look for the body, I usually find it being eaten by the two surviving Ghost Shrimp (which are very large for Ghost Shrimp, but match what a Ghost Shrimp should look like in every other way, so I doubt they were mislabeled).

I have read in more than one place that a good indicator a snail is alive is if there is still meat in the shell. I have a snail tank with a bunch of common pond snails I breed for my puffers and when one dies for whatever reason, I always find an empty shell and a nasty little gob of meat bobbing around.

JoseDepacos wrote:I have read in more than one place that a good indicator a snail is alive is if there is still meat in the shell. I have a snail tank with a bunch of common pond snails I breed for my puffers and when one dies for whatever reason, I always find an empty shell and a nasty little gob of meat bobbing around.

Hmm, maybe that's it then, they are just dying and falling out... This tank is also intended to feed future puffs, but things seem to have gotten a little complicated, so... we'll see.

Hmm, the meaty part generally stays in the shell after death until it rots away or is pulled out. There is a muscle attachment to the shell on the inside that would have to be pulled off or the soft fleshy parts rotted away enough that it would separate.

It's often hard to tell when a snail is dead because of this. A good indicator of death, other than an empty shell, is if it stinks to high heaven and does not retract into the shell when picked up. A dead snail will smell like nobodies business!

When I find floating snails the first thing I do is have a sniff -- there's no way you could mistake a live snail for a dead one the way they smell after death. But when I've found snails on the substrate just laying around, one indicator if they are alive or not is to touch the "trapdoor". Generally they will pull it shut if they are alive, but if not, it will be partially open and obviously will not move when touched.

this probably has nothing to do with what you are talking about... and sorry for that, but my F8 likes to just suck the snail out of the shell. he refuses to bite them only take the snail out.

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