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Do RCS and snails eat fish eggs?

27075 Views 12 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  sandiegoryu
I was planning to breed some fish when I realized that the tank I was planning to keep the fry/eggs/breeding partners had RCS and many kinds of snails.

I have pond snails, MTS, ramshorn, and those tiny flat ramshorn-like snails. I was wondering if any of theses snails would eat fertile egg scatterer eggs (Microrasbora Kubotai eggs specifically), and if the RCS would eat them.

Otherwise I need to get some dwarf puffers to exterminate all :p. Of course I'll put the fish somewhere else in the meantime.
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snails & rcs might eat the eggs.. Eggs are nothing more than packets of protein. It's good eatin'.
My ottos lay eggs in the shrimp tank and they get eaten by my cherries. I've actually witnessed the shrimp chowing down on the otto eggs. :(

I'm not sure about snails though.
I placed cory eggs in with my cherry shrimp, and now I have tiny baby cories. They didn't bother the eggs...
I would suspect that both would eat eggs, but I know that Cherries will from experience. They love their meat as much as they love their vegetables.
Curious

Interesting.
Are you sure the red cherries where eating viable eggs and not just wind or unfertile eggs Zos?

Very interesting.
Usually only red cherry shrimp eat only dead meat although I imagine they would like a live bloodworm as they sure eat the frozen ones up good.
The RC shrimp is an omnivore so it is possible I imagine but have not seen them eat viable eggs. I have heard they will actually clean viable eggs but i dont recall the source of that info.
Snails like red ramshorns and pond will definitely eat eggs.
So...

RCS do not eat cory eggs but they will eat otocinclus eggs. They will not eat tiny eggs perhaps? I imagine Oto eggs to be much larger than cory eggs.

And snails DO eat eggs. I will keep that in mind. This is going to be harder than I thought...
yea they'll porlly eat the eggs, its safer to just transfer the fish, or the cherries,and snails (snails might be hard, )
I have raised Dwarf Puffers or Pea Puffers as some call them in a similar situation.
I had to remove the eggs and hatch them in a protective enclosure.
The best results were when I just set up tanks with no substrate and just some clean java moss with an aged sponge filter and some original tank water.
Fungus was actually the biggest killer of eggs.
I would treat the eggs with Maroxy by Mardel in floating containers until they were about to hatch. Its was a difficult task trying to keep the eggs from going through too much change in water parameters. Good thing was that the parents kept spawning and I was able to perfect the routine until I had excellent survival rates.

Good luck.
OH SNAP THIS IS MY 100th POST!!!!!!!!!!!
you can actually use ghost shrimp to hatch killifish eggs. They eat any deris that gets on the eggs but don't eat the eggs themselves.
here's the article
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/breeding/Leong_Lyretail_Eggs.html
Wait a second. I think I read somewhere else that shrimp will eat unfertile eggs but leave fertilized ones alone. I read that they smell their food rather than look at it so that they'll smell the unfertilized ones and eat them but they don't smell the fertilized ones so they won't eat them. But I dunno how accurate RCS are. I just see them randomly picking up things...

Hm, well I guess I could make me a snail trap I saw here. That would be perfect. Too much of a hassle to get a dwarf puffer to eat all the egg eating evil thingies.
Ok my plan now is to kill all my RCS and snails by using a few loaches. Now I was thinking chain loaches or dwarf loaches. I've read that dwarf loaches or chain loaches gobble up theses guys. Then I'll return them to petsmart or just give it to them if they don't want to pay me back.

Now does petsmart sell these fish? That's my problem... I'm gonna check tomorrow.
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