nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Folks,
I discovered a terrible thing yesterday... Colombian rams horn snails, Marisa cornuarietis, eat baby halfbeaks. Not dead ones mind, living ones. I'd noticed that I'd lost a few over the weeks, but hadn't seen the bodies, so assumed they'd died and been eaten. But yesterday morning I came across a (still alive) 6 week old halfbeak with obvious radula scars along its back, as well as a dead, half-eaten halfbeak. The attacked halfbeak was swimming about somewhat normally and otherwise appeared to be fine. The other fish are healthy and there's no sign of diseases in the tank that might incapacitate one of the fish long enough for a snail to catch it.
All I can suggest is that during the night the snails blunder into the fish resting in the floating plants, and if they (the snails that is) are lucky, they can pin it down with their big foot.
Colombian rams horn snails are quite commonly traded, and I had thought they'd be a fine scavenger for eating up the leftover food the halfbeaks miss. I guess not.
Anyway, if they can catch halfbeaks, I'm sure they can catch other livebearers. So be careful!
Cheers,
Neale
The snails in question...
I discovered a terrible thing yesterday... Colombian rams horn snails, Marisa cornuarietis, eat baby halfbeaks. Not dead ones mind, living ones. I'd noticed that I'd lost a few over the weeks, but hadn't seen the bodies, so assumed they'd died and been eaten. But yesterday morning I came across a (still alive) 6 week old halfbeak with obvious radula scars along its back, as well as a dead, half-eaten halfbeak. The attacked halfbeak was swimming about somewhat normally and otherwise appeared to be fine. The other fish are healthy and there's no sign of diseases in the tank that might incapacitate one of the fish long enough for a snail to catch it.
All I can suggest is that during the night the snails blunder into the fish resting in the floating plants, and if they (the snails that is) are lucky, they can pin it down with their big foot.
Colombian rams horn snails are quite commonly traded, and I had thought they'd be a fine scavenger for eating up the leftover food the halfbeaks miss. I guess not.
Anyway, if they can catch halfbeaks, I'm sure they can catch other livebearers. So be careful!
Cheers,
Neale
The snails in question...
