a comment on live food

I raise snails in all my tanks.
Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS) are the best for not messing with my live
plants.

RamsHorn are best in an unplanted tank (or a tank wiuth javamoss which grows
faster than anything can eat it)

I daily crush a few snails against the glass as a "live food" treat for my
fish.

Because it is raised in the tank it is gauranteed to have no foreign
parasites or diseases.

Clown loaches seem to eventually get all snails but MTS

weather loaches let a few RamsHorn live, but not overpopulate the tank.







"Phil" wrote in message
...
If it's HBH 8 veggie flake then it's a perfectly fine food for them, mine
thrive on it intersperces with outher foods of course. I'd be more
cautious
about the bloodworm though I guess an insectivore might be less
susceptible
to the problems other rift lake cichlids can have with them.
My water is also soft(ish) but with a high pH, as is lake Malawi, where
the
labs come from originally, so long as there's enough kH to keep things
stable then I think you should be OK, some salt added and some marble or
coral crush substrate would make it a bit harder which wouldn't hurt from
where your water is right now.
My real concern is the 26 gallon part, I know there' anecdotal evidence
that
labs are ok in smaller tanks but mine were pretty agressive even in thier
55G and didn't settle (read stop killing each other) till they got into
the
7 x 2 x2. However I did have a dispopoortionate amount of male fish which
would definately make them meaner.
I still fear that even being the only of it's kind once it gets bigger
other
fish might find thier buttocks being handed to them.