Advice needed: Snails and shrimp inside the sponge filter

[Moeno]

Hello, I have the aquarium co op sponge filters, and so far they have been great. However, I did notice that my baby mystery snails and baby cherry shrimp like to go inside the sponge (I’m sure there’s lots of yummy morsels in there), and I’m concerned about them growing and then getting stuck inside there. The shrimp are slender so they could probably wriggle their way out, but the snails might not be so lucky... Any advice on what I should do so that my sponge filters don’t get clogged up with a bunch of dead snails?

[Alesha]

Mine look just like this too. In fact, when I added a sponge into my 55-gallon to pre-seed it with bacteria, it also got pre-seeded with Assassin snail eggs. They were just all over it. But they have since hatched into their new aquarium. 

I really don't worry about it too much. I figure if they feel the squeeze of the sponge they will move away from that area before they get too big to avoid it. In other words they will choose the path of least resistance that won't squeeze the life out of them. I think they'll be ok. 

That being said, I did one time have to remove a baby guppy whose head was stuck in the filter. I don't think that was an issue of his eating and growing too fat and then he couldn't get out. I figure he was probably running from another (bigger) guppy and took a wrong turn and couldn't extract himself. It's only happened the once though.

 

[ZoeyFish]

I wouldn't worry about it.  I have this same sponge in a tank with about 100 shrimp and they go in and out of it all the time.  I can't really say if any of them have died in there, may have happened over the year I've had this filter, but I've never seen it happen. You shouldn't worry about it and not much you can do with such a course sponge.  If this really does bother you then my only suggestion is get a different filter with finer material so nothing can go in and out of it, you'd just have to clean it more often which is why Cory sells the course option.  Good luck!

[Moeno]

On 12/2/2020 at 8:09 PM, Alesha said:

Mine look just like this too. In fact, when I added a sponge into my 55-gallon to pre-seed it with bacteria, it also got pre-seeded with Assassin snail eggs. They were just all over it. But they have since hatched into their new aquarium. 

I really don't worry about it too much. I figure if they feel the squeeze of the sponge they will move away from that area before they get too big to avoid it. In other words they will choose the path of least resistance that won't squeeze the life out of them. I think they'll be ok. 

That being said, I did one time have to remove a baby guppy whose head was stuck in the filter. I don't think that was an issue of his eating and growing too fat and then he couldn't get out. I figure he was probably running from another (bigger) guppy and took a wrong turn and couldn't extract himself. It's only happened the once though.

 

oh my gosh @Alesha, you told me that horrifying story about your guppy, and the same thing happened to me the next week! I found one of my platy babies dead with his head stuck in the sponge. Poor thing. 

As for the snails and shrimp, I'll take y'all's advice and not worry about it too much. Hopefully they will be smarter than I give them credit for haha. I put myself in their shoes, and the thought of being stuck inside that sponge just kinda gave me the heebie jeebies! 😱

[JettsPapa]

Hello,

I'll agree that you likely don't need to worry about it.  Snail shells grow so slowly that it's unlikely they'd get stuck.  Also the sponge material isn't rigid, so that will help too.