plant help please, not a big issue

[tropicfishman]

thi sisn't anything major, but an annoyance more than anything, I recieved a whole bunch of live plants for free from a very generous person on here, everything was great, my rotola indica was growing rapidly, wisteria had been doing awesome, hygro was strong and healthy, my crypts died, but thats ok, the only problem is my fish and/ or my snail ( ramshorn ) keeps eating the stalks in half and uproots my plants, anyway of preventing this besides waiting on the snail ot die ( since I know its him ) he's reduced my plants to nothing!! PM please with any help, I may forget to check this area of the forum lol

 

[SparKy697]

I have ramshorn snails and lots of them. At present I have not had a problem with them eating anything other than the algae wafers that are intended for my cories.

Could more food possibly deter them from the plants?

 

[rich311k]

I have ramshorns every where I have not had any problems with them eating plants. There are more than one species however.

 

[tropicfishman]

well what made me think it was him was one day I came in and it looked like he was munching through the stem of the plant, by night time I came back home and it was floating, so I suspected him. I really never throw in anything like algea wafers, he spends his time eating brown diatom type stuff off the bottom of the glass and some grazing around the driftwood. I know he's eating..something, maybe some shrimp pellets I throw in occasionally? or left over food? otherwise he wouldn't have lasted almost 8 months lol

 

[squawkbert]

Buy some algae wafers.
Either he's *really* hungry or the leaves were inserious trouble anyway.

Keep the crypto root balls in the substrate. New leaves will probably grow out (they frequently have melt-downs when disturbed, but grow new leaves after).

Were the Rotala etc. from in an aquarium or were they emersed? If grown emersed, they'll drop most of their old leaves & grow new when immersed. If this is the case, the snail is just aware of this sooner than you are and is eating the "doomed" leaves before they look bad (to you).

 

[Purrbox]

What kind of Ramshorn do you have? If it's the large kind with dark stripes along the spiral, it's a Columbian Ramshorn and a known plant eater. In that case you'll need to remove the snail, remove the plants, or tell the snail to enjoy it's saladbar.