Does anybody "let the tank feed itself" ala Father Fish?

[Schuyler]

On 4/11/2023 at 12:06 PM, Lennie said:

Btw, as an addition, I love snails and shrimp. However, couple weeks ago, I had a chance to talk with an assistant professor who works on freshwater and fish as a career, and he adviced not to keep snails in my fish tanks at all together with the fish. Yes, they are great parts of a cycle in the mother nature, but our tanks are not nature. 

What was his reasoning?

[Lennie]

On 4/19/2023 at 4:23 AM, Schuyler said:

What was his reasoning?

I can't remember the details well, but it was related to about snails hosting and helping some sort of diseases and they cannot really be medicated as they are sensetive to almost all medications. So maybe a very long time on quarantining to break any cycle might help? dunno. Snails don't really show any signs on ilness regarding what they might be potentially carrying or helping the cycle to continue like parasites. Also like one of the most common snails in the hobby, nerites, are wildcaught. Some rabbits are wildcaught known to carry leeches for example. Who knows!

I would not like to inform wrong. But he very clearly said just rehome your snails or keep them in a different tank 😄 I'm like hell no! 

I am a snail guy 😄

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Lennie

[JettsPapa]

On 4/18/2023 at 8:45 PM, Pepere said:

It is estimated that 10,000 - 20,000 humans die every year due to Freshwater Snails.

 

That number is only exceeded by deaths due to Dogs, estimated 25,000 -35,000 a year, Snakes, estimated 50,000 -100,000 a year, Other Humans, 437,000 - 475,000 a year, and number 1 Mosquitos, estimated 750,000 - 1,000,000 a year.

 

mosquitos due to malaria, freshwater snails due to various tropical diseases…

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans

I don't doubt that information, but I question it's relevance to keeping them in fish tanks.

[Katherine]

On 4/18/2023 at 4:11 PM, Darax said:

Do not just read the headline in his thumbnails, watch the whole videos. For instance, he's clear that if you have FRY you should be feeding MORE frequently, not less.  Many of his videos have the same pattern of reasonable advice in the thumbnail so long as you watch the video and understand the context. 

But in this video he didn't actually give what I'd think of as advice. He said 'this is the better way to do things' with no advice on how to get to that point. For people not already doing this you'd need some sort of 'here's the first step, then some possible second, third, fourth steps' for it to be useful.

[Biotope Biologist]

Those statistics for human deaths you always have to take with a grain of salt. First and foremost in areas of malnutrition and limited access to medicines you’re going to see lots of human deaths from random pathogens we encounter in the wild. 
 

Every once in a blue moon a news article will come in and announce that a human died due to having X animal as a pet or encounter in the wild and just completely misinform and fearmonger the public. Because fear sells. So no snails in your fish tank is very unlikely to cause you to die from Schistosomiasis. As a professor they should really know better.

 

The common flu caused 12,000-52,000 deaths annually between 2010-2020 and 41 million were infected in the U.S. that puts the death rate caused by the flu at 0.13%. Take in factors such as age and other reasons for hospitalization and that statistic is no longer terrifying.

[I took the larger numbers for the calculation]

Edited April 19, 2023 by Biotope Biologist

[NOLANANO]

On 4/19/2023 at 9:27 AM, Biotope Biologist said:

As a professor they should really know better.

Maybe I misread Lennie’s post but I don’t think the professor was insinuating that the fish keeper would die, more that the snails might have parasites or something that would harm your fish.

[Katherine]

On 4/19/2023 at 12:18 PM, Pepere said:

snakes I can personally do without as well as mosquitoes…

At the risk of getting us even further off topic...

Male mosquitos are very important pollinators.

[Lennie]

On 4/19/2023 at 7:09 PM, NOLANANO said:

Maybe I misread Lennie’s post but I don’t think the professor was insinuating that the fish keeper would die, more that the snails might have parasites or something that would harm your fish.

Yup. He just said ideally dont keep them together in the tank. That's all. Otherwise, everything has a balance in nature. Let's be real. Humans hurt the balance of the nature, not snails or anything else really. Tanks are not nature. They are tanks. Nature has a balance, we have direct impact on tanks as humans.

 

Also I remember this becoming a potential issue about ramshorns carrying potential diseases. Fish for thought made a video about this before. @Biotope Biologist

 

Edited April 19, 2023 by Lennie

[Littlefish]

On 4/19/2023 at 10:06 AM, Pepere said:

It may be part of the reasoning why the person was advocating no snails in tank…  I did not post it as an argument that fishkeepers should not have snails in their tanks.

As a practical measure I spent months trying to eradicate them through removal several times a day before surrendering to them…. I gave up trying to remove the ramshorns that hitched a ride in on plants..,

 

Short of harsh chemicals to kill them off or stripping the tank and flooding the plants and substrate with seltzer water I am resigned that they are going to be there…

One pea puffer in my 75g took care of ALL my cuc, including snails and amano shrimp.  The amanos and larger snails he would work over for days or weeks before they succumbed.  Lfs said he was the largest they had ever seen.  Tank became overrun with bba, hair algae, and finally, cyano and had to tear it down.