Can freshwater lake snails eat sand?

Yes. Malaysian Trumpet Snails live in and on top of sand substrates. While most snails will crawl happily over the sand, Malaysian Trumpet Snails will burrow through it. They don't burrow much if at all in gravel, which is too large to easily push aside.

Much debris - fish mulm, food scraps, etc. - accumulates on top of the sand, more than accumulates on top of gravel. Snails have better access to debris as a food source on a sand surface than they do on gravel, which allows much of the debris to fall through. MTS feed on what they find below the sand's surface as well on top and turn over the sand as they burrow, which keeps the sand aerobic and "live."


Bonus: MTS don't disturb the roots of any plants rooted in the substrate.