Apple Snails and Shrimp, a warning.

shrimpbaby · Post by **shrimpbaby** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:17 pm

Well, certainly not a cherry shrimp, but my ghost shrimp went wild when I stuck this Magenta brig in the tank. It was literally trying to pry the trapdoor open.

Cactus Bastard · Post by **Cactus Bastard** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:14 am

shrimpbaby wrote:Well, certainly not a cherry shrimp, but my ghost shrimp went wild when I stuck this Magenta brig in the tank. It was literally trying to pry the trapdoor open.

Yeah, ghost shrimp love snails. Smaller ones at least. I used to have snails breeding like rabbits in a couple of my tanks, and the ghosts just loved them. I don't know if they can actually get the trapdoor open on a snail that size, but the ones I fed them were never more than about 1/4". There were at least a couple different kinds of snails; I don't know what kinds, they were freebies that came in on plants. The "snail-safe tank" was eventually shut down, and the ghost shrimp eventually completely removed them from their tank, so I haven't had any snails in years.

I just got a bunch of baby pond snails (from a pond), that I'm plannning to re-introduce. Larger snails are easy to spot and remove in non-planted / lightly planted tanks, and I can count on ghosts to clean up any stragglers, so I'm not worried about an outbreak.

Moni · Post by **Moni** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:29 am

I keep a big yellow mystery snail in with my ghost shrimp and zebra danios in an aquaterrarium. So far they are doing fine together. The snail is out and very active. The ghost shrimp don't seem to pay any attention to the snail. I keep seven different species of aquatic snails but have only tried the mysteries with the shrimp so far. I'm still doing some research on the subject of snails and shrimp.

Cableguy · Post by **Cableguy** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:29 pm

pleco_breeder wrote:Hello,

I've also noticed my cherries picking at the ramshorns in their tank. The snails just showed up after the tank had been set up for about 6 weeks, and were not intentionally placed there. I normally throw out any snails that I find, but I've never seen a strain with these markings before. I've worked retail/wholesale/import for over 20 years, and know that I have a marketable strain. Anyway, I've seen the shrimp pick on these to the point that they will close. I have less than a dozen shrimp in the tank, and have no doubt that a larger colony could easily stress the snails to the point that they would not come out. I've also seen the shrimp sit on the wall where a fresh clutch of eggs was hatching and pick off the newborns as they emerged. Normally I would move the critter causing me trouble. However, regardless of the strain, these are still ramshorn snails and produce more than my small colony of shrimp could eat in a week every day.

Larry Vires

pictures?