Snails And My Puffer

[mwood2]

Well I have been picking up some snails from my lfs since they give them away from free. What I was hoping for was for them to breed so I could just toss a bunch into my dwarf puffer tank every other day or so. Got a dozen or so and so far nada. I placed then into my 10 gallon with my molly and Ito and everyone is doing fine but how long until they breed? The tank has slot of plants and there on them alot. Also is it possible to just toss 6 or so snails into my puffer tank and just leave him be (food wise) for a day or 2 and feed blood worms once a week or 2? Also he seems bored and hides alot, is that good or bad, the tank stats are fine and there are lots of plants and some food.

 

[iSnail]

Depends on what kind of snails they are.

Also, if the snails are too big. Your puffer will take chunks out of the snail and slowly killing it instead. Do watch out for uneaten dead snails causing ammonia spike. It's much better feeding snails the size of it's eye so that it can crunch it whole or suck out the meat in one go.

 

[mwood2]

there pond snails I believe and they are the size of his eye. He does a 1 hit kill on them every time as well.

 

[iSnail]

Pond snails are cold water snails so I'm not so sure how well they breed in tropical temperatures. You can try keeping them in your molly tank and see how they get on. Otherwise, they are pretty prolific breeders. When I had some pond snails before, I found the eggs taking very long to hatch. However, they do produce loads of eggs like there's no tomorrow