scatty

Hi all. I've had pond snails in my tank with a betta, some cory cats and an apple snail. Don't know where they came from, I assume with a plant, but they've been reproducing madly and I was starting to wonder how I was going to control the population. Well, suddenly that is no longer a problem - they've all just vanished. Any suggestions as to how that happened? I thought they were virtually indestructable, now I'm really curious as to where they went.

acestriker

I have seen a Betta eat a snail but if the tank was becoming infested I could not see how one beta could eat that much.... Humm... this is a tuffy.. good luck in finding the answer

scatty

I wouldn't say infested, there were probably 6-10 and some tiny ones in a 5g. It was enough. I did squash one once trying to get the betta to eat it, but i never saw him showing much interest. Maybe he did develop a taste for them after all. Could a betta really eat an adult pond snail? Didnt realise they could crush the shell.

acestriker

I've never seen a betta rip through the shell but when i first heard about them eating them my friend stopped feeding his betta every day to every other day and even then it was very little he would come up on the snail and bite at were the snail was attached to the glass... eventually he would get the snail off the glass and would then start ripping the insides out.... it was cool but thats all i had seen... if you it verifies that they do in fact eat them but even then 6-10 adult snails seem like a lot for a betta to consume in a short period of time... either way the snails are gone and that is good right? lol