eating snails

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seedy

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About a week ago I watched one of my axies gulp a snail off the glass and thought it was pretty cool.
Last night , both did it within about 10 minutes of being fed. Must of been dessert.
Just thought I would share it with all.
 
Seedy,

Are you saying that your axolotls consumed the snails with their shells still intact? If so, this is very dangerous for your axolotl and can cause problems similar to those noted with gravel ingestion, i.e. impaction of the intestinal tract.

Have a look at this article, it should give you an idea of what species cannot be mixed with axolotls:

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Mixing_disasters.shtml

Keep in mind that the rule of thumb is that axolotls should never be integrated with other species.

Jay.
 
How big are the snails seedy? Large ones should be removed as they can get stuck in your axolotl's throat. Many people have kept smaller snails in their tanks with no hassle, even with the axolotl occassionally eating the snails, but yea it is more ideal if you can remove the snails. As far as not keeping small snails with axolotls, that is your judgment call, same as how people advise not to keep feeder fish with axolotls but many do (including myself).

If you have to remove the snails, don't use chemicals or anything like that as it might have side-effects on your axolotl. Manual removal is the way to go..
 
It really depends on the size between the snail and the axie. I have little ramshorn snails in my aquarium. and my axie (11 inch/28 cm) grabs a few here and there with no problems. I don't think he has any problem digesting the shell, and it does help to keep the snail population in check. Large apple snails can cause a some nightmare situations, though.
 
Yes , shell and all.
The snails are less than 5mm , axies 24+ cm .
I don't know what species they are, ( they seem to have a stripe on the shell ) any ideas?
Would snails be a natural food for axies in the wild ?
 
At that size your snails should be fine for ingestion. :) Snails can be fed to axolotls from the garden too and are a decent food for them but most people remove the shells to be safe, they tend to be bigger than 5mm tho!
 
I don't think they'll have a problem with the smaller snails. However, saying that - I take them out of my hatchlings/juveniles tank if/when I find them.

I have seen a 4cm Axolotl pass a snail shell.
 
My axolotl eat the small snails of the sides of the tank..the juveniles especially seem to like them as now I rarely see any on their side.
 
I too don't think you have a problem with this size snail. My axolotls have eaten hundreds or more probably thousands of the small native European ramshorn snail Planorbis planorbis. At one stage after I put the axolotls in a tank which was heavily populated with snails they refused worms and all other foods for about a month until the tank was nearly snail free. I now manually remove snails from my fish tanks and drop them into the axolotl tank which never contains many live snails, only pale digested shells from axolotl droppings. I suspect a similar species must form part of their native diet. Like others who have responded I agree there are snails and snails and don't want to create the impression all sorts of snail are safe.
 
I didn't think it was a problem , I was just sharing an observation I made with everyone.
Someone looking for info on this topic would look under Quality of Life ,so it's probably good to move to here.
Thanks for the responses , at least I now know they are not the only Snail Munching Monsters out there.
 
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