Snail Eating Plecos ?

All posts regarding the care and breeding of these catfishes from South America.
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Bamboo
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Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by Bamboo »

I hear there are plecos that munch on snails .. if this is true , what species or " L " numbers ... I'd like some of these MTS to be gone.
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by Triactis Trainer »

I have a few different species of leporacanthicus that enjoy munching on some of the smaller snails that find their way into their caves. L91.L264 are the #'s
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by wijnands »

A combination of trapping and assasin snails is probably the best way to keep the mts under control
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by jvision »

My L91 eat snails all the time; however, they don't really put a dent in the snail population. After the lights have been out for about an hour, I still see hundreds of MTS in the tank.
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by Linus_Cello »

wijnands wrote:A combination of trapping and assasin snails is probably the best way to keep the mts under control
Or maybe some freshwater puffer fish?
Bamboo
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by Bamboo »

LOL , I'm not looking to find a pleco that will eradicate them. Just to help me pick them off one by one ... Along with the other foods I give them of course...
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by Richard B »

No pleco species will eradicate the snails but it might make a dent into the numbers, perhaps not significatly though
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by wijnands »

Linus_Cello wrote:
wijnands wrote:A combination of trapping and assasin snails is probably the best way to keep the mts under control
Or maybe some freshwater puffer fish?
Or maybe not. I think adding a fish to fix a symptom and not the root cause is a bad idea. It's lead to Pterygoplichthys in many small tanks and in the wild all over the world for one.
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by TwoTankAmin »

My experience is that zebra plecos will consume snails. I have a variety of tanks with plecos and they all have snails, but there are always fewer in the zebra tanks and I spot most of them as high up on the glass as they can get. I also find some number of empty shells when doing tank maint. On the other hand I harvest snails from P compta tanks to feed the assassin snails in other tanks.
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by yayfish24 »

Assassin snails do a great job eating snails. I used to have thousands of mts in my 15 gallon and after about 5 months it was just shells. Now o have ramshorns in another tank that i occassionally throw in with the assassins so they dont starve.
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Re: Snail Eating Plecos ?

Post by L 46 »

I have 14 Tanks with L46 Zebra Plecos and I could watch them many times eating snails.
Sometimes I do not feed them for 3 days....most of this times they catch some snails to eat them.
But this is not a good method to reduce the ammount of snails in the Fishtank.
I prefer to put a piece of cucumder or a piece of Brussel sprouts on a string into the fishtank.
After a few hours it is littered with snails.
Then I can take them out of the Fishtank and put them in another Fishtank or kill them, most of the time I put them in other Fishtanks, because I like them, they clean my gravel.
Best for you would be to put a bit less feed in the fishtank.
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