I have a small 2.5 or 3 gallon (not sure which) tank on my desk at work. This morning when I came in I saw that one of my glow lite Tetras had an eye missing. He was swimming around and looked okay to me. When i went to lunch around 12 I came back to find that he was missing. I was looking around the tank and low and behold my Apple snail was having him for a light snack. AHHH!!! Originally I had 4 in there and one Monday there was only 3 and I couldnt find him anywhere. Now there is only 2. Is that normal for a snail?

It is kind of a rare occasion for apple snails to eat other fish, but I've heard other stories about people's apple snails eatting their fish too. So, it is possible.

I doubt your snail became a predator. I think it's more likely your fish died and your snail decided to eat the body.

its one of those ultra fast snails that can catch the fast fish

Im not stupid I know a snail could not catch a fish. I just didnt know they would eat the dead ones

Sorry, your title of "Killer Snails!" implied that you suspected them to have killed said fish, not merely consumed dead fish. :rolleyes:

i think i saw on a nature show once that theres a saltwater snail that kills fish. it lures them close with a long antenna thing then stunns them with some poison and proceedes to eat them alive.

That would be correct. In fact, the conch's around Australia boast some of the strongest poisons on earth, they can (and have) killed humans, too. It is not at all unheard of for snails to catch and kill fish in SW. Freshwater, however, is another matter, and most freshwater snails have no means to kill a healthy fish. It's POSSIBLE that the fish could have just happened to swim into the snail's mouth when the snail wasn't pressed up against something, but unlikely. On the other hand, a missing eye indicates an injury rather than an illness, and if all you have in the tank is the snail and the tetras, it's just about equally difficult to think that all of a sudden one of the glow lites decided to turn on the rest of the school out of the blue. So basically the death should be ruled an unsolved homicide for now, but snails are not very particular about what they eat, so it's not surprising that it was chowing down on the dead fish, wether it killed it or not.

Those salt water snails creep me out immensely. I'm so paranoid about the ocean!

Well, as long as you don't live around Australia, then you probably have very little to fear from the ocean. If you do live around Australia, those snails are the least of your worries... there are those tiny jellyfish, no bigger than your thumbnail, which boast the #1 deadliest poison... then there's the blue-ringed octopus, as if that wern't bad enough, there's still saltwater crocs to think about.

Now I know why I hate the beach! :lol:
(I'm in South Australia.)

ill take the risk if one of them tries to sting me ill just give them the old one two and they will be down for the count

Leema is definatly correct, they will only eat a DEAD fish.