Snail Shells Are Corydoras Killers!

[AliGee]

I thought I would post this up so others can learn from my mistake.

My mystery snail died (probably of old age) and I left his shell in the tank for decoration.

Several weeks later one of my corydoras went missing. There aren't nearly enough fish to consume him and I searched the tank up and down... It was a MYSTERY!

I went to buy more corydoras, and in the process bought another snail. They threw in a pretty big snail shell as well because what the heck...

A few days later, ANOTHER corydoras was missing... I was flabbergasted! I could not figure it out...

Finally, it dawned on me... And yep, there was a freshly dead Cory in one shell, and an old dead Cory in another... I now have NO snail shells in my tank...

So FYI... Cory's like to go in them and they will get stuck and die. =[


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[dragon14]

Oh no! Thanks for the warning! I was considering at one point whether to get a snail with our pygmy cory cat fish... of course it would be a small snail, but, that sounds so risky!

Your poor fish

 

[AliGee]

I still have live mystery snails... And they are perfectly fine. I will just be sure to ALWAYS remove the shells immediately after I realized they've died... =[


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[Cold Canadian]

That happened to me to and I was so sad


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[dragon14]

Ohhhh I misinterpreted... I thought the snail was eating the fish. So when they no longer need their shell or die, the fish goes in curious and dies?

Do you know why they are dying?

 

[AliGee]

The snail died of old age (I presume?) The corys die because they get stuck. Most fish can't swim backwards... So when they can't turn around, they're stuck. =[


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[dragon14]

Oh ok.

Ohh I didn't really realize that. Ugh. Poor critters