snail question

in article , Dark Phoenix at
wrote on 10/20/03 6:29 PM:


"Dave, Chris & Ben Oinonen Ehren" wrote in
message ...
Yes. I have an applesnail the size of a softball in with my two comets.
The three of them generate green water which I use to feed my daphia
cultures, which then go to feed the betas. Isn't the food chain great?
They do tend to poke at the snail and it shuts up until they go away.
Apple
snails love goldfish pellets, and goldfish love canned spinach, so you can
feed them all the same thing. Check out applesnail.net for more cool
applesnail info.

Chris

How do you make sure the food gets to the snail? I've wondered before if
snails get enough to eat. Seems like the GF get everything long before the
slow snail could even start moving- tell me you don't have to spoon feed it?


--
The goldfish will always get their share first. They're faster, and their
mouths are bigger. The snails, no matter how big and fast, will always be
at the end of the buffet line, so you need to make sure there will be
something left for the snails when the goldfish are done. That means (for
me) a combination of feeding more pellets than the goldfish will eat (by
only a few-don't want to overfeed) and feeding things the goldfish are only
moderately interested in. Goldfish will eat canned spinach, and I'm pretty
sure its good for them, but if I give them (2 approximately 5 inch goldfish
and a softball sized snail) a tablespoon sized blob of canned spinach, the
goldfish eat maybe 10% and leave the rest for the snail, who eats it all
over the course of a few hours. Some varieties of snails will eat hard
vegetables: raw lettuce, sliced carrot, sliced raw potato, etc. that are too
hard for goldfish to bite pieces off of. But some of the most popular
aquarium snails (pomacea bridgesii) only eat soft/dead plant material. This
is good for people who don't want their plants eaten, but it means if you
want to feed carrots you need to cook 'em a little first. It also means
that they compete less well with goldfish, because if it is hard enough to
frustrate a goldfish, it may also frustrate a bridgesii. As always, check
out Applesnail.net for more information.

Chris