Frog Bite

[dski13]

So something is taking a bite out of my Frog Bit. It also ate a good portion of one of my newly emerging banana plant lilly pad leaves. The only plants that seem effected are floaters. Does anyone know what might be doing this and how to get rid of it.

At one point I took out all the frog bit and sorted it keeping only fully intact plants, rinsing in tap water. The munching slowed down but it has picked up again now that there has been time for the pest to increase in number again.

I do have ramshorn and pond snails but they have not eaten any live plants so far.

[somewhatshocked]

It looks like your Frogbit is yellowing a bit, so that's a sign of nutrient deficiency or otherwise poor health. That could be why your snails are eating it (because it's dying).

Your snails won't eat healthy plants, so if they're dying, that's why they're being eaten.

What are your water parameters? Are you dosing any fertilizer? What's the size of your tank? What kind and how many fish/shrimp do you have?

[danielt]

Shrimp? You have any Amanos in there? They munch at my Salvinia and Pistia like crazy. The plants aren't doing so well either.

I would guess that yours aren't doing fine as well. Snails might also give them a bite if the plants are weak.

[dski13]

I have a 20 Gal Tall dirted tank. I have a small bio load of 1 adult and 9 juv guppies. I have been dosing with potassium Nitrate, postasium phosphate, and SeaChem fluorish for micros. I generally add 0.3 g potassium nitrate and .1 g phosphate twice a week( I do not have the spoons). I do think I need to increase the amount of nitrate I add or the frequency because my API test shows low nitrate on the days I re-dose. This is a low tech tank with medium light.

Would snails eat a perfectly round hole like that?

I will try increasing the ferts and see what happens.

[danielt]

Low nitrates might cause that. I need to keep low Nitrates in my shrimp tank and that's the only tank I had problems with them. In the larger tank I need to take them out weekly as they will block light to lower plants.

The snails or any other creature will eat the dead/soft parts of the plant. The hole pattern will match the affected part of the plant.

[dski13]

This is my first tank and it is still relatively new (2 months). I have been slowly adding ferts. I guess this is a sign that I need more. Since the frog bit are floaters they do not benefit from the nutrients in my soil.

[le0p]

I really thought this thread was about getting bitten by a frog