Snails eating fish alive

[dskidmore]

I was too sickened yesterday to write about it right away, but I found my already ill goldfish on the bottom of the QT, still breathing, with his fins covered in snails! I rescued him, put him in a breeder box, disposed of excess snails in the QT. His fins look like he's had an advanced case of fin rot. I've stepped up the treatment for his apparent dropsey, we shall see how he does in the comming days. I've just never heard of snails acting this way.

The last two unexpected deaths (filtration method failure) were discovered by the large cluster of snails on the fish, but I thought they were simply consuming an already dead fish, it is possible that they contributed to the demise of these fish?

Anyone heard of this happening before?

 

[Jchillin]

Snails, being scavengers, probably found him in a catatonic state and decided that it was time to do what they do. The fact that several were on him attest to this. Sorry to hear of this unfortunate incident.

I've seen it once with my previous tiger barbs. One had gotten ill and I found Gary sneaking up on him at the bottom of the tank.

 

[Devilishturtles]

I've seen snails grab on to live(but very ill) neon tetras, and almost swallow them whole. Needless to say, I let it happen, figuring that it would be better out of it's misery than me getting it out and letting it suffer to death.

Otherwise, IME snails flock to death in your tank. Whether I think they contribute to the death of fish, I doubt it.

 

[dskidmore]

Well goldfish is still swimming 24 hours later. Tempted to euthanize, but I rarely can bring myself to that when the fish appears to still be trying. He's arching his spine so that only his nose and tail touch the bottom, and if disturbed he can still swim around.

Really could stand to loose the goldfish, don't know why my friend put him in with a bunch of tropicals. I can't stand being directly murderous to him though. He's been in too rough a shape to trade in since I got him.

 

[thats_so_fab]

omg are you serious ???
Last time i had snails and goldfish, my 8 goldfish ate the two snails within a week! it was pretty disgusting but the goldfish seemed to love the snails.

 

[dskidmore]

Well, goldfish hasn't made a dent in my exploding snail population. I have ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates of 0, and no algae, so see no need to stint on feeding. Plants need the extra fish waste.

 

[DepotFish]

You must really be feeding generously. I haven't had a single baby snail since I got my ramshorn a few months back. The eggs would be immediately eaten. Right now he's in the guppy tank and hasn't even had babies yet as the guppies will feast on snail eggs.

 

[dskidmore]

I have alot of plants for the snails to hide the eggs in.

I've never bought a snail, they come on the plants. You always get snails breeding if you have plants.