Can you teach an apisto to eat snails?

[sherry]

I have too many red ramshorns.. and a trio of apisto cacs triple red (mature male, 2 juvenile females)

I Haven't seen a dent in the snail population since they arrived more than a month ago, but i read here that some apistos eat snails.

can I train mine to do that, by squashing a snail or two?

[Mike Wise]

I doubt A. cacatuoides is a snail eater. Most apistos have no method of getting snail out of their shells. If you crush the snails, they will be eagerly eaten. The only successful snail eaters that I've heard of are A. macmasteri. Here the male would take a snail in its mouth and smash it against the glass. Once the shell was crushed the fish would eat the snail. I cannot say if this was a unique fish or if all macs do this.

[sherry]

too bad.. I could bring myself to crush one or two to "teach" but I would feel terrible just going around snail squashing.

I'll have to continue just periodically trapping them and giving them away.

[Apisto ranch]

Get you a couple of drawf puffers and they get rid of the snails for you or loaches like the clown or yo-yo. The only proplum with this is if you want to keep some of the snails. If you want to keep some of the snails then you've got a proplum cause the puffer or the loaches want stop til there all on the dinner plate.

[mooman]

I can vouch for the fact that A. cacatuoides do eat larval snails. I had a harem in a heavily planted 29g. No algea eaters so plants were looking a little dingy, and the handful of pond snails weren't keeping up.

Long story short, I introduced some hatchet fish that released some kind of superflu into the tank, and all fish were dead in 4 days (Never seen anything like it, this tank gets 50% WCs weekly, and was stocked with my own F1s). Anywho, during the last two weeks it's been sitting empty while i wait for whatever it was to burn itself out, and during that time I've seen a snail EXPLOSION! I'm not complaining, the tank has never looked better. all algae is gone. The fish obviously don't eat larger snails, but they will keep the snail population from growing.

[tjudy]

I have just purchased some dwarf puffers. My plan is to rotate them around the room when I have the opportunity to clear a tank out. I will give the puffers a week or so with no food (from me) to work their snail detail.

My puffers are still very small. 1 cm at the most. I have noticed that they will not touch the larger snails. I am ok with that, because I do not mind snails... I do not like hundreds of them though.

[aspen]

aah-hem.

snails don't ever seem to get used to bleach.

[Peter Lovett1]

Well as I have a couple of moment free i thought I would add that. Members of the cacatuoides group will and do eat snails. But the best Dwarf Cichlid snail eaters are leatacara sp.

The fish do not crush the shell they grab the body of the snail and shake it out of it's shell like a dog with a rag. I don't know if this is learnt behaviour or instinctive.

[blueblue]

You could try the male adult A. sp. Maulbruter. My Maulbruter would always attack and eat Apple Snails and Shrimps in my tanks. Moreover, maulbruter is known for its strong jaw and big mouth :)

[Peter Lovett1]

Hi blueblue

Well they are part of the cacatuoides complex so I would have to agree and a very nice looking and interesting fish as well.

Over the year i have wondered why I have never had a snail problem watching a cacatuoides shake a snail from it's shell you start to understand why.

When it come to leatacara sp. they may only eat one or two a day but it soon adds up to a snail grave yard.

[cdawson]

I have just purchased some dwarf puffers. My plan is to rotate them around the room when I have the opportunity to clear a tank out. I will give the puffers a week or so with no food (from me) to work their snail detail.

My puffers are still very small. 1 cm at the most. I have noticed that they will not touch the larger snails. I am ok with that, because I do not mind snails... I do not like hundreds of them though.

Dwarf puffers, despite their size are one of the more aggressive FW species, I don't recommend moving them around your fishroom as you suggest. They will nip the fins of and even may kill apistos, I had two dwarf puffers kill an 8 inch pacu early in my fish keeping ventures.