Pea Puffers with a Nerite?

[Rory Waliser]

I've been looking at getting a few pea puffers for a while now and I think the setup I have will do nicely when I go pick them up. My only worry is the nerite snail I've had in this tank for several years. It is about an inch in size at this point and I've read that the puffers will normally just ignore a snail that is bigger than them, but I'm curious if anyone has experienced their puffers killing larger nerites.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

There was just discussion about this kind of thing recently. Puffers will harass the snail, per @Odd Duck they'll pick at the foot. I wouldn't combine them.

[Odd Duck]

On 10/18/2021 at 1:27 PM, Rory Waliser said:

I've been looking at getting a few pea puffers for a while now and I think the setup I have will do nicely when I go pick them up. My only worry is the nerite snail I've had in this tank for several years. It is about an inch in size at this point and I've read that the puffers will normally just ignore a snail that is bigger than them, but I'm curious if anyone has experienced their puffers killing larger nerites.

Nerites are more covered by their shell than mysteries or ramshorns, but I’ve not had good luck with regular Nerites - red or gold racers, zebras, olives, etc.  But I’ve had good luck with marble limpets which are a supposed to be species of Nerite.  They are covered completely and very tightly by their shell so the pea puffers can’t get at the soft tissue at all.  I’ve also had good luck with horned/thorned Nerites.  I think the horns/thorns are just enough protection.  Sometimes you’ll get them in and they’ll have all the horns/thorns broken off.  I wouldn’t put those in with pea puffers since I think they’ll be as at risk as other Nerites.

Like @xXInkedPhoenixXmentioned, I’ve had pea puffers kill even the largest ramshorn snails (over dime sized) and even larger mystery snails.  I put the snails in well before the peas thinking they’d be breeders in there (somewhat works for ramshorns with enough cover and other foods available) but didn’t work for the mysteries at all.

A combo of bladder and ramshorn snails will breed almost fast enough to keep up their population with 8 peas in a very heavily planted, 20 gallon long, as long as I supplement with some additional bladders, rams, scuds, whiteworms, and blackworms.  They will not begin to keep up as a sole food source.

I’m hoping that bladders, ramshorns, and MTS’s will keep a steady, self-renewing population with the same 8 peas in a very heavily planted 29 gallon, with the same live food supplementation of course.