I recently bought 8 slightly-smaller-than-pingpong-balls trap door snails.. Now 3 weeks later, 3 have died.. All of them just left empty shells, i found one body.. it was dead, partly eaten and 'fresh'. None of the shells stank and my ammonia/nitrites/nitrates have been perfectly fine so no rotting or decomposing snails anywhere..

My suspects are: Bauer (my 3inch JD), Robert (3inch Convict), Rik (2.5inch) convict... does this sound feasible?

I dont tend to suspect the barbs and 2 plecos (of which i haven't seen one for a while either, but probably hiding)..

I was hoping to keep the 3 cichlids in the corner 54Gallon for a year or so before moving them, but has the killing started??

i think it sounds possible, but i dont think a cichlid could take a snail out of its shell and eat it. I had snails (not trap door snails though) and they died of natural causes and they came out of their shell when they died.

Did they stink at all? The one body i found could have been kind of alive still.. thats how fresh it looked. Snails go bad pretty fast when they die i hear..