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"and they will eat snails by sucking them out of the shell."

Wouldn't that be part of the live food?

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I think this is important to know for the ones that want to keep them in the same fishtank with snails. For example, if somebody expects the apple snails to live together with a ropefish , should better read this first.

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Its a ropefish, a predator,basically a polypterus missing a set of fins. Theyll eat just about any invertabrate or small moving thing going. And for the record, they dont suck, they cant,the lips are rigid and the jaw structure is like a primitive amphibians. Sucking is something that fish with extendanble jaws like bass or leaffish do.The jaw expansion creates a suction, whereas ropefish just grab and snap. A large ropefish will more likely just crush a snail and eat the lot, shell and all. No one would expect a major predator with a fondness for invertabrates to live happily with snails, its obviously not the done thing. The "sucking" is a presumably a misinterpretation of events based on owning a small specimen , probably trying its damndest to get a grip on some snailmeat.All thats needed for such an entry is "will consider any and all freshwater invertabrates as food".

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