Do Cory Catfish Eat Snails?

Cory catfish are bottom dwellers and spend most of their time on the bottom of the tank searching for food. Cory catfish helps you clean the tank from leftovers and dead and decaying plants and smaller fishes, but do they feed on snails. So, Do cory catfish eat snails?

Cory catfish do not eat snails as they will not fit in their mouths. Also, they are peaceful fish and will not hunt for the alive snails. However, they can occasionally feed on eggs of small snails and dead snails. If you want to feed snails to your cory catfish, feed them crushed snails.

This article will discuss whether cory catfish will feed on snails and the ideal dietary requirements of a cory catfish. So, let us get into it.

Will cory catfish eat snails?

Cory catfish will not feed on snails.

You can keep snails in your cory catfish tank as your cory catfish will not harm the snails.

It is not practically possible also for a cory catfish to feed on snails as they will not fit in your cory catfish mouth.

Also, cory catfish are least interested in feeding live adult snails.

However, it is possible that you can see your cory catfish sometimes feeding on baby snails or tiny eggs of snails.

If you provide crushed snails to your cory catfish, they will take that as a meal and feed on them.

Also, cory catfish will feed on dead snails as the dead snails come out from their shells.

But, they will never even try to feed on adult alive snails.

So, if you are planning to add snails to your cory catfish tank, go for it, as your cory catfish will leave with them peacefully.

What are the ideal dietary requirements of cory catfish?

Cory catfish are omnivore fish and prefer to feed on plant and meat matter food to fulfill their ideal dietary requirements.

Feed your cory catfish various types of food to ensure their faster growth and development.

Cory catfish love to feed on worms and insects.

Consider feeding your cory catfish live and frozen bloodworms, blackworms, tubifex worms, and mosquito larvae to ensure their faster growth.

You can also feed them sinking flake food and shrimp pellets to fulfill their meat-based nutritional requirements.

Consider feeding your cory catfish blanched vegetables like cucumber, zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, and boiled peas to fulfill their plant-based nutritional requirement.

Feed them one to two times a day, and it would be best to take a gap of 12 hours on every feeding.

Also, ensure to provide them food in a quantity they end up completing in one to two minutes to avoid overfeeding.

Also read: Do Cory Catfish Eat Cucumbers?

What makes it not possible for cory catfish to feed on snails?

All these things stop cory catfish from feeding on snails:

  1. The temperament of cory catfish.
  2. The size of the snails

The temperament of cory catfish

Cory catfish are peaceful fish and love to live with other peaceful fish in a community tank.

Cory catfish will not even fight back when some other fish try to chase or bully them.

They are peaceful and calm fish and like to live in a group.

Cory catfish spend most of the time scavenging the bottom of the tank in search of food.

They will not threaten or bully any of the fishes or invertebrates.

When it comes to adding a bottom dweller fish in a community tank, cory catfish are the most that people prefer to go for.

The size of the snails

It is practically impossible for a cory catfish to feed on snails as they will not fit in your cory catfish mouth.

Cory catfish can be as long as 4 inches in size, of which the common size is 2 inches.

There are hundreds of snails that you can keep in your aquarium.

The average size of a snail ranges between 1-2 inches.

But snails have a diameter of about one-fifth of an inch, preventing cory catfish from feeding on them.

With such a diameter, cory catfish will not be able to fit the snails in their mouth.

So, even if you have a 4-inch size of a cory catfish, they will not be able to fit a snail in their mouth.

So, Feel free to add snails to your cory catfish tank as they will not harm your snails, and both of your cory catfish and snails will live together peacefully.

What do cory catfish eat in the tank?

Cory catfish are bottom dweller fish and spend most of the time scavenging the bottom of the tank, searching for food.

They will feed on leftovers and dead and decaying plants, and small fish.

They will also feed on dead snails and the tiny eggs of the snails.

So, cory catfish will help you clean your aquarium of leftovers, dead plants, and small dead fish.

It doesn’t mean that your cory catfish will not need any additional food.

Make sure to feed your cory catfish various types of plant and meat-based food to ensure their faster growth and development.

Cory catfish will not feed on any algae.

So, if you want to get rid of algae, consider adding algae eaters to your tank rather than being dependable on cory catfish.

Also read: Do Cory Catfish Eat Algae?

Things to take care of when keeping snails in your cory catfish tank

When we plan to keep different fishes together in a tank, there are many things to consider first.

Some of the main things we should consider first are:

  1. Temperament
  2. Water parameters
  3. Water conditions
  4. Dietary requirements
  5. Tank size

In the case of keeping cory catfish and snails together in the same tank, temperament is not an issue as both are peaceful creatures.

Let us discuss the parameters and water conditions to maintain while keeping snails and cory catfish together.

Parameters

Cory catfish require a water temperature between 72-82 °F.

The water pH level should be between 7 and 8.

When it comes to snails, most snails will live comfortably in such water parameters.

So, water parameters are also not an issue when keeping cory catfish and snails together.

Also read: Ideal Water Temperature For Cory Catfish?

Water conditions

Snails and cory catfish both require a clean water conditions to thrive.

Ensure performing weekly water change of at least 35% to keep the water clean.

Consider adding a good filtration system with biofilter media to keep the water safe from harmful toxins like ammonia and nitrite.

Also, keep a regular check on ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels and ensure to maintain ammonia and nitrite at 0ppm, whereas nitrate is below 20ppm.

We recommend using the API ammonia test kit to check ammonia levels regularly. The API ammonia test kit shows an accurate result.

Dietary requirements

Feeding will also not be an issue when keeping cory catfish and snails together.

Cory catfish will feed on leftovers and dead and decaying plants, and small fishes.

Cory catfish are omnivore fish and require various types of food, including bloodworms, mosquito larvae, blackworms, tubifex worms, daphnia, shrimp pellets, and sinking flake food.

So, feed your cory catfish all these kinds of food and also feed them blanched vegetables to fulfill their plant-based nutritional requirement.

Snails will also feed on leftovers. They will also feed on algae which cory catfish will not do.

Both of them will not interfere with one another food and will peacefully grab whatever comes to them.

Also read: Why Is My Cory Catfish Not Eating?

Tank size

Following the once-inch one-gallon rule will help you decide the tank size for your cory catfish and snail tank.

Cory catfish can be as long as 4 inches in size, and keeping 5-6 cory catfish is a must to form a school.

So, consider providing 3 gallons of water in an average per cory catfish.

And the snails will settle in an average of about 3-5 gallon tank.

So, a 20-gallon tank is a must when planning to keep cory catfish and snails together.

Which fish will feed on snails?

These are some fish that will happily feed on snails:

  1. Kuhli Loach
  2. Assassin snail
  3. Zebra Loach
  4. Betta fish
  5. Clown Loach
  6. Dwarf gourami

All these fish will feed on snails.

If you want to get rid of snails in your aquarium, consider adding these fishes.

Assassin snails are the best to keep to eliminate the snails from your aquarium.

Conclusion:

Cory catfish do not eat snails.

Cory catfish are peaceful fish and will not hunt for alive adult snails.

Also, it is not practically possible for cory catfish to feed on snail as the snail will not fit the cory catfish’s mouth.

However, they will feed on dead snails and small eggs of snails.

If you want to feed snails to your cory catfish, provide them crushed snails.

Keeping cory catfish and snails in the same tank is completely safe, and they will live together peacefully.


Reference: Wikipedia

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