Topic: Whats eating my plants

[chriszog]

Help
  I have got very small leach like things on the underside of my frogbit and other soft leaved plants in the pond. They are devouring the leaves at an alarming rate. They are about 5mm long and translucent to look at, tinged slightly brown in colour.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Chris

[Svengali]

Sounds like snail larvae - and the wrong sort of snail (Apologies to British Rail for any breech of copyright).
I think that you must have the ram's horn type, which will eat anything, in both the larvae and mature stage, rather than the other type, which eat decaying vegetation.
I don't think that there is much you can do about it, except remove them when you find them.

JeremyB

[silly billy]

Im no expert but i  think you will find the ramshorn snail is the one you want.The one you dont want is the great pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis).The ramshorn is shaped like a catherine wheel.However i dont think that is the cause of your problems as snail eggs are laid in blobs much bigger than 5mm.The ramshorns eggs are laid in blobs kind of pancake shaped where as the great pond snail lays them in a sausgae shape.
One of the forum members called margaret might have an idea.

[chriszog]

Thanks for the replies.
      You are correct Billy Ramshorns are the ones you want in the pond.
For everyones information I have identified the culprit as;
Larvae of the Brown China-Mark Moth (Elophila nymphaeata).
Apparently nothing you can do about them . However as I like moths it is no longer a problem. Apparently they are the only moths that lay in water and the larvae are aquatic.
We will live together in harmoney. They also only fly in June and July so hopefully next year the plants will survive.
Regards
Chris