Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Apple snails and their place in the pond

RES are famous for eating snails. They have special pharyngeal (OK, I don't know what it means either, probably greek for "on the tongue") teeth to allow them to crush the shells.

From personal aquarium experience I can testify that BG will also eat snails that they are able to suck out of the shells (kind of neat to watch). They devoured every snail we put in a 5 gallon tank over the course of a year; no snail lasted longer than a month. These were snails which looked very similar to the apple snail pics I found on-line, including a big one over an inch across with a "trap door" (he lasted the longest).

So your apple snails are subject to at least two sources of predation; that's probably why they are on top of the cover.