How to stop snails eating each other?

[lizzie97444]

I had recently put my white Jade (4cm big in shell length) and a Helix Aspersa(1cm big....) in a tank together.
Yesterday I had the most terrifying time of my life!
My white Jade (Mark) tried to eat my Helix Aspersa(Eliza)!
He was on top of Eliza!
Eliza was very far in with a lot of bubbles around the mouth of her shell!
She once had bubbles when she refused to grapes but she had it now in a different situation
so I did wat I did last time.
Bathed her in warm water.
PHEWW!
she came out of her shell and was fine.
Would there be a possible reason that Mark did this to Eliza?

Thank You.

Renamed. - CroSSLeSS

[kanin]

From what you have described it dosen't seem like Mark was trying to eat Eliza. I think he just have bulldozered right over her without considering her size and wellfare.

This is pretty much the reason to not keep snails of too different sizes together in the same tank. I would consider putting them in two tanks untill she's bigger.

The bubbles I think is a defense mechanism that in case a predator would try to eat the snail,
it would release a sticky and slippery extract in order to make itself to slippery for a birds beak. I've also heard that people that feed snails to their snakes sometimes have problem as the extract glue their snakes throat together.

[Kevin]

I wouldnt advise keeping snails that are so different from each other together, if the Helix aspersa is wild caught it could even spread parasites and possibly disease to the fulica.

I have read of fulica in Hawaii eating native slugs there, so maybe snails from different parts of the world are unable to recognise other snails and slugs as anything other than a source of food. It would probably be best to keep them seperate.

[kanin]

Nov 9, 2008 11:11:59 GMT Kevin said:

I have read of fulica in Hawaii eating native slugs there, so maybe snails from different parts of the world are unable to recognise other snails and slugs as anything other than a source of food.

That's an interesting thesis(is this the right word?), and I think it could be true in some cases. I myself kept some of my gals with my cb Pomatias when I first got them, until I learned to know better when finding this forum. However, I didn't have any problems but in cases where problems occur this could be the explanation.

Although, my Iredalei tried to mate with my pomatias So in their case there was some understanding of that the other snail was another snail..

[lizzie97444]

Two tanks to clean out
lol oh well.
They're my luvly snailies!
Who cares!
I luv them.
(besides Mark's poop.)
What could produce the bubbles!??
from somewhere frum their body??
THANK YOU!!

[coyote]

I'm not sure how snails go foamy, but I would imagine it would involve mixing air from their breathing hole with their slime.

[kanin]

When watching my snails do this, which they seldom do, I've observed that the foam origins from their "airhole". So I would imagine as coyote that the snail would be mixing air with slime.

During my mite infection some of my snails where making foam when handled. Probably to ease the irritation caused by the mites. At one time when I was going to bath them Boris foamed while I was holding him which made him very slippery and made me drop him, thankfully onto a soft clothing. So I would imagine the foam aswell is to actually make them slippery in order to make predtors drop them.

EDIT:
I see that I allready posted in this thread about the slippery effect, sorry for spaming