Loaches and snails

[Lotus]

Just a quick question. We finally grew some decent snack-sized snails for our loaches, and I dropped a few in the tank. I saw the loaches going for the snails, but now see no trace of them. Both the clowns and the yoyos went for them. Do the loaches eat the shells too?

 

[clothahump]

No, they just suck out the contents.

 

[mann]

I thought they busted them apart, in which case you may only come across some shell fragments

 

[Lotus]

Our loaches tend to carry their food off, so I wasn't sure if I would be finding shells in the tank or not. I didn't think they would eat the shells Thanks for the replies

 

[420Loach]

its kinda funny, my clowns destroyed the first apple snails i put in the tank, but when i put them in the 55 they left the 6 apple snails in there alone. there is also a single brown snail(the ones that come in plants from the lfs) in my 40 gal thats big(well for those snails anyway) and my clowns never touched it, and neither do the yoyos that are in the 40 gal now. maybe they prefer shrimp pellets

 

[Locust]

My Zebras leave the shells. They're tough to spot on gravel, but they are easy to spot after gravel vacc'ing, since they'll float much higher then gravel.