Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good day

Has anyone tried feeding their tilapia garden snails?

My garden is full of snails. I can collect and fill a 10L bucket every week but never seem to make an impact on their population.
Some even manage to make their way in my aquaponics system and eat my plants. Sometimes I find their shells in my water pump so they end up in the fish tank as well.

I would love it if this problem can be used as an asset somehow so I'm interested to know if they could be fed to my tilapia who are about 0.5kg each and 30cm long. I wouldn't want to try it if it's not advised so I'd like to get some feedback from the forum.

Otherwise is their any other useful way of taking advantage of a large supply of garden snails?

Thanks

I can't say for certain that this will work for you but it works for some types of fish, some types of snails and in some areas - Many types of fish will eat snails but I'm not sure about Tilapia. In some places diseases might be an issue and I think you might be in or close to one of those areas. Some parasites spend part of their life cycle in snails and another part in humans. Probably the most serious one is shistosomiasis and it is a problem in parts of Africa and other parts of the world (third link has the distribution for anyone interested).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistosomiasis

http://www.fao.org/3/ad002e/AD002E03.htm

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2020/travel-related-infectious-diseases/schistosomiasis