Do Bettas eat snails?

[SomeDudeAtHome]

So right now I'm in the process of cycling a 5 gallon tank for a future betta. It's been going for a couple of weeks now and yesterday I decided to get a couple of plants for it. The guy at my LFS said swords would be a good fit for the tank so I bought an Amazon Sword and Melon sword and some Duck weed hitched a ride on both of them so I have some of that floating around (who doesn't love a free plant haha). Anyway both swords are relatively small right now. After about an hour of being planted I looked in the tank and noticed a really tiny snail crawling up the glass and kind of groaned. I woke up today to find a little batch of what I believe to be snail eggs on the bottom of one of the melon leaves. If it's not snail eggs than I'm not sure what it is because it wasn't there yesterday. But if it is than I'm probably going to have a lot of snails all over my tank before I get my betta which leads me to the question do bettas eat snails? I tried googling the question but a lot of different answers came up.

[denaliwind]

Haha what an interesting thought! I've never heard of bettas eating snails before, I can't imagine they would be able to digest the shells.... but maybe the babies snails would be a tasty treat, they do scavange around a lot. XD

[BlueHaven]

lol, your username is cool. :D


They might heat them if they are small enough, it depends on the betta.
My bettas tried to eat the snails that hitched a ride on the hornwort I got, but they couldn't get to them because the snails had trapdoors.
I believe one of them in my CT tanks was either eaten by him or just died because I couldn't find it. Though I believe it had enough food so my betta probably ate him.
If you want to get rid of them, you should always check for the eggs and squish them onto a paper towel and toss in the trash.
The snails themself, well, they are probably the kind that populates super fast so you could crush them against the tank if your bettas don't eat them. This I assume kills them fast so they don't feel much.
If you want to keep them just keep a very close eye for eggs, they will reproduce on their own, at least the ones I had did!

[Oldfishlady]

I am a big fan of common snails and feel that they have a place in a planted tank...mine have a job....they eat the dead and dying plant material along with some algae, however, common snails can get out of control if not kept in check.....my Bettas will eat the smaller snail especially the ones that just hatch and will eat the meat of the larger snails if I crush them first......it varies from Betta to Betta if they will eat or even bother snail in the tank.

[B3TTA LUVA]

Hmmm...never heard of that, but it sure would be inresting to see them try...

[demonr6]

Polo pays no attention to the snail in his tank, Dante on the other hand decided to have his way with the snail in his tank and the poor thing is missing some vital appendages.

[LisaLB24]

I've never seen my betta's eat a snail but if the mood strikes they will peck at them or carry them around for a while. I love my snails though, both the intenitional ones and the hitchhikers! In a planted tank they do a great job of keeping things clean!

[Littlebittyfish]

It depends on the betta I think. My fish Cleo doesn't try to mess with the ghost shrimp or the snails in my tank, but Batman used to try and attack the snails non stop.I took them out of course, and put them in with Cleo.

[SomeDudeAtHome]

Thanks everyone! You're all much more helpful than Google I guess I will just have to hope I get a Betta that enjoys the taste of snails but who knows maybe they'll grow on me. At the rate most snails reproduce though probably not haha.

[dramaqueen]

One of our members told the story of their betta carrying a snail around and smashing it into the side of the tank, killing it and eating the snail.