Do snails eat fish poop?

by **neonlights999** » Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:08 pm

The people at the pet store told me they do, but I've read you need to feed your snails, in which case I would think they'd choose nice food over fish poop?

by **friend_of_fish** » Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:08 am

They'll eat leftover food - anything the fish don't eat. Very handy in that regard. But I don't know if they will eat fish waste.

by **cometkeeper** » Wed Mar 07, 2018 5:48 pm

Snails will eat left over fish food, dead animal and plant material. They will not eat waste material from fish. No fish poop!

by **tetrafan** » Thu Mar 08, 2018 6:58 am

Yes, like cometkeeper says, they'll eat leftover food and decaying plant and animal matter, so they're very useful there. They can help keep things tidy and possibly find decaying matter quicker than you would - which could help with water quality as decay will cause an ammonia spike if left unchecked. But they don't eat fish waste so I'm afraid you would still have to use the gravel vac

by **nea7** » Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:02 pm

I always like to say, snails also put out waste, just as fish do, so keep that in mind when adding snails to your aquarium. You CAN have too many snails! Particularly the bigger kinds like mystery snails/apple snails. I wouldn't worry too much about Malaysian trumpet snails on the other hand!

by **dutchaquarium** » Sat Mar 17, 2018 8:35 pm

Snails do not eat fish poop. The other thing i want to point out that may be misleading in the comments above is that yes snails will eat decaying plant matter and leftover food, however not rotting food. Food that has not been eaten for a while should be removed instead of be left and fouling the water.

Do snails eat fish poop?

6 posts