Puffers and Snails

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WestTex

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 15, 2008
135
0
16
New Braunfels, Texas
Howdy,

I have noticed some peculiar behavior among the snails that I place in my puffer tank vs. how they act in the main tank where I grow them. I have a pair of South American Puffers in a 30 gallon that's planted, with driftwood, and a sandy bottom. I keep the tank at 80 degrees. I grow a steady stream of snails for them in a 55 gallon planted tank that I also keep at 80 degrees.

I usually throw a few snails in the puffer tank a couple times a week. As soon as the snails hit the sand they begin to burrow into the sand. Honestly the puffers will chase them to the floor of the tank but then don't seem to pay them much mind. After the snails have buried themselves, I usually never see them again. Before I had puffers in this tank, the snails would be out and about grazing. The snails in the 55 gallon tank stay out and about grazing.

So my question is to the puffer folks, because it seems that maybe the puffer has something to do with this, what is the reason for the different behavior?

The bottom only has a few empty snail shells...Do these snails realize that there is a snail predator in the tank? Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this kind of behavior and curious about what might cause this.

Thanks
 
Never seen this behavior myself, although no snail that hits the water of my puffer tank will ever reach the bottom...
 
Ya, I wish I had that. I feed them alot of different fromzen foods. Maybe I'll have a few days of just snails and no frozen foods and see if that gets them to get after them more.
 
Yesterday I moved my two south american puffers to my 55 gallon tank that is populated with snails. Before the puffers were in the tank...snails everywhere in plain view. After the puffers had been in the tank, not a couple hours later, all the snails had buried themselves in the sand. When I first added the puffers, I saw them nip at a couple snails but didn't commit to eating any. The perameters in my 30 gallon tank are identical to the 55 gallon. Today, the snails are still all under the sand. When I feed I usually throw in an algea wafer for some of my other critters. The snails almost always show up and attack the wafer. Not a snail came to eat. Do snails put out some kind of pheramone when they are under stress? I know they have a pretty decent sense of smell.

Just a strange occurance that has me wondering whats up.
 
andyroo said:
Add a bucket of puffer water to a tank with comfortable (out and about) snails and see what happens.
Then sign up for graduate school
Click to expand...

Yep, there are probably alot of us that read this forum that would love to do that and just study this kind of thing for a living. It would be cool to find a place that studies aquatic life that I could maybe voluteer at. There are a couple of faculities near my house that do this. I know I would get a kick out of helping them even if I am doing something unimportant.

I think they the snails do produce a pheramone when they are threatened to warn other snails. I have read a few other forums (bc i can't find any other info yet other than forum posts) that have asked the same question. One post was in reference to ramshorn snails and the fact that they started acting different, burying themselves and such when he added a few assasin snails. I think it would make sense that they would do something like this in order to help preserve other snails. And for the puffer folks I am sorry for the snail ramblings. This post should probably be moved to the invert section. I just noticed it around the puffers.
 
^ interesting, learnt something new today...
 
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