drobbyb
Bowhead
I was thinking earlier today about how to teach someone how not to overfeed. So many new fish keepers overfeed their fish on a regular basis, and despite attempts to teach the proper way, they continue to do so to the detriment of their tank and stock.
So, how would you teach a habitual overfeeder to correctly feed their fish and take care of some of the leftover food while they are learning?
Pest snails! Yup, there is finally a use for these pesky little snails! As many of you may have experienced, pest snails are well known for their ability to reproduce rapidly, so rapidly in fact that even snail eating fish sometimes don't seem to make a dent.
But I thought snails were bad? That would depend on your perspective. From an aesthetic standpoint, yes too many snails can be bad. From a situational standpoint, we can use these inverts to take care of two problems at the same time.
Snails do two things for us: The eat any leftover food, and their population size can be used as a direct indicator of how much you are overfeeding. If there isn't much leftover food, the snails won't be able to reproduce. It is true that snails can and do eat algae as part of their diet, but unless your tank is completely taken over by an algae that the snails will eat, there will still be insufficient energy available for a population explosion.
Anyways, that was my thought. I don't know if it would work in practice though
So, how would you teach a habitual overfeeder to correctly feed their fish and take care of some of the leftover food while they are learning?
Pest snails! Yup, there is finally a use for these pesky little snails! As many of you may have experienced, pest snails are well known for their ability to reproduce rapidly, so rapidly in fact that even snail eating fish sometimes don't seem to make a dent.
But I thought snails were bad? That would depend on your perspective. From an aesthetic standpoint, yes too many snails can be bad. From a situational standpoint, we can use these inverts to take care of two problems at the same time.
Snails do two things for us: The eat any leftover food, and their population size can be used as a direct indicator of how much you are overfeeding. If there isn't much leftover food, the snails won't be able to reproduce. It is true that snails can and do eat algae as part of their diet, but unless your tank is completely taken over by an algae that the snails will eat, there will still be insufficient energy available for a population explosion.
Anyways, that was my thought. I don't know if it would work in practice though
