Mysterday snails are -usually- Pomacea brigesi, but they can be
another similar species that will devour plants. You have to deal with
unsure labeling when you go into a petstore, that mystery snail could
very well be another species.

Aside from that, if you had just purchased the wisteria and
anarcharis, the bases of them were most likely rotten or close to
being rotten and perhaps that is why they were going after that (the
part below the rubber or metal band is usually dead or close to dead
even if you don't realize it).

They are hungry critters 3 of them in a 15 gallon would have probably
devoured the tank as you mentioned, I would have placed only 1 in a
tank that size.

Another criquite is that they were in with a betta which are voracious
(too strong perhaps), but well known snail eaters and harassers, so
perhaps they didn't have as good of a chance to eat the food you
offered and went for the easiest food (the plants, because they had
cover from the betta).

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the snails.

Eric Schreiber wrote in message . ..
(Allen Smith) wrote:

I would get 1 or 2 brigesi snails, they are by far the best algae and
leftover food eaters.

Is that the same as the "Pomacea Bridges" Mystery Snails? If so, I had
a bad time with them in my little tank.

I put three of the snails (each about 1 inch in size) into a three
gallon tank with a betta, and three stalks each of wisteria and
anacharis. Hmm. Lot of threes there.

Anyway, within just a few days, these snails had chewed through the
base of every one of the plant stalks.

It's not like they didn't have anything else to eat, either. Though
the tank was quite new and didn't have any algae, I had been dropping
in a half wafer of Hikari Algae Wafers each day. The snails ate these,
as well.

I'm sure if I could hear them, they'd be making snorting noises.

Anyhow, I've had to remove the plants from the tank and settle for
feeding the snails on just wafers. They're still quite cool, but I'd
really hesitate to use them in a planted tank.