My slug attacked one of my snails

[Deleted]

It was Arion subfuscus against Cepaea nemoralis. The snail was sat on the lid of the tank and the slug crawled up there and tried to bite its face, it was really vicious. I put the slug back in the wild. The snail showed no sign of damage. It was lucky I was watching the tank at that exact moment.

I wonder if the slug was just curious or whether it would have actually ate the snail. I thought they just ate plants and dead things. But I have seem small wounds on some of the Arion ater in the garden...maybe they bite each other too...

So yeh be careful about putting slugs in with snails.

[Ryan]

Oh dear ! thats no good is it!? I saw the biggest slug I`ve Ever seen the other day ! lol it looked like MR Hanky lol

[coyote]

I would not have thought a slug would go after something live. I know slugs, at least certain species, will go after carrion in addition to vegetable matter. But something live? I would not have suspected that.

Good thing you were there to see what was happening, for your snail's sake.

[Deleted]

Well, the large Limax maximus are very vicious, they'll even attack each other. I kept one once with my GALS, I didn't know much about it, and it attacked them, caused all these bite marks on them. I finally realized what was causing it and released the slug. But I didn't think a small Arion species would attack snails. Even if it was just curious and wouldn't have actually ate them I wouldn't want to risk traumatizing them.

[kanin]

I had problems earlier with a sluginfestion in one of my tanks, they where really small, about a centimeter, and they seemed to have moved in with a plant, within it's roots. In the beginning it wasen't a problem but later on I noticed a small wound on one of my cepea nemoralis, wich have healed by now, and I saw one of the slugs eating a baby nemoralis, had quite a few in the tank at that point.

I had to clean out the tank to get rid of them, they had multiplied to quite a lot by then.

[coyote]

I wonder if having a bit of dog food or cat food in the tank would keep slugs off the snails? You know, a little bit of kibble, a source of protein they wouldn't have to stalk and attack?