Can dead snail/snails kill fish?. In this modern era, it is very astonishing that many people still keep aquarium/mystery snails together with fishes in a pond, which led to this question,
Can dead snail kill fish? Yes dead snail or snails could kill fish when kept together with fish. This is due to the fact that when aquarium snails die, they produce ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to fish if allowed to accumulate in fish production systems. When ammonia accumulates to toxic levels, fish can no longer extract energy from feed efficiently, which will shorten their life span and eventually cause their death.
Keeping aquarium snails and fishes in one pond is a very outdated method of rearing these two water creatures, infact it is highly un-advisable to do, this is due to the fact that mystery snails behavior is very complicated and confusing.
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Sometimes you won’t be able to figure out if a water snail is really dead or just sleeping because they sometimes float at the surface of the water, turn upside down and also sometimes do stay still on a particular place for a very long time.
With these behaviors above, it is very hard to identify if they are dead or not and this might warrant you to ignore the dead ones out of ignorance, which will harm the fishes in the pond.
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Apart from the release of a harmful substance known as ammonia which does kill fish, dead snails can also change or discolor the pond water as a whole and also breed offensive odor in the pond when still kept in the pond for a long time.
When this happen, it is very assured to kill or affect every creature in the pond negatively because the pond is now very uninhabitable and diseased.
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In order to avoid your dead mystery snail or snails killing your fishes, there are simple ways to go about this, they are:
Divide your pond: This is the most effective method to control this!.
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When you divide your pond and keep the fish and snails in different sections or places, there is no how any decaying snail could hurt the fishes.
This method is very modern and highly encouraged in order to curb the high rate of fish fatality in ponds.
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Master your snails: The act of mastering your water snails is yet another way to curb the negative effects of dead snails on fish, in the sense that once you notice any dead snail, quickly remove it from the pond before it start contaminating the pond.
Clean the pond and change it’s water regularly: By frequently changing the pond water and cleaning it, you reduce the level of germs in the pond which may have been as a result of decayed or decaying snails.
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There are some detergents which are perfect for cleaning of ponds.
When gotten, remove the fishes and snails, clean the pond, put in fresh water and put the creatures back, this will go a long way in prolonging the lives of your fishes and snails.
Related: Do aquarium snails molt?
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