feeding wild snails to fish?

[hc8719]

my two kuhli loaches love eatting snails, so i was wondering, there is a creek near my house, if i fished some snails from it, kept them in a qt tank until they layed eggs, then feed the offspring to the loaches would this be ok, i'd assume it'd be safer than just popping snails straight from the creek in

i understand feeding fish wild animals can risk catching diseases, but how likely is this actually, i hear about people feeding their fish worms and bugs all the time

 

[dskidmore]

With any live food, there is some concern of transmitting parasites or other disease. I think your plan of putting them in QT would be a good idea. I'd want to see the snails QTed in a tank without fish for at least a month.

The risk of transmitting disease with live food varies greatly, but it only takes one bad batch to ruin the health of your fish, so why risk it?

 

[Reefmonkey]

Snails especially carry a lot of parasites - schistosomes, etc. I took parasitology as a biology major in college, and was awed by the number of parasites that rely on snails for part of their life cycle - let's just say I'm never eating escargot again!

 

[fish_4_all]

I think it would be better to set up a small tank just for snails and then have someone send you some pond snails. There should be alot of poeple that have then and will ship them for the cost of shipping. Just post an add in the barter/trade forum. Either that or go to the LFS and see if you can have some snails from the plants they have. Mine will give them away. I feed my skunk botias snails from my planted tanks all the time, pond snails. When I don't they seem to mope.