Bladder snails, friend or foe?

When planting my tank I got some bladder snail and ramshorn snail hitchhikers. After watching the two ramshorns breed today I decided to do some googling. To my horror there seems to be a lot of fear mongering out there about bladder snails. I noticed two clusters of white snail eggs in my tank leading me to conclude they are probably from the bladder snails. There's only two of them as far as I can tell. If they eat plants I intend to remove them and all eggs (just in case) tomorrow during my daily water change and leave only the ramshorns as I hear they are beneficial to the planted tank.

So does anyone know definitively whether or not bladder snails eat plants or not? I haven't noticed them eating plants but I read if they overpopulate they will.

Thanks,
Jordan

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I would be more concerned over the reverse...bladder snails will not eat healthy plants, just algae and dead plant tissue. It is the Ramshorn I would watch carefully...while most sources say they are plant-friendly, I have had members report quite the opposite. I've never had them, at least not since decades ago and I cannot remember what they were into back then.

Your egg masses could be either species as both lay eggs. I assume they would look very much the same, but maybe an expert can tell us differently. [Diana Walstad on her website says the egg masses look the same (pond and Ramshorn). She also mentions that "pond" snail refers to several species all found in ponds, but having the same basic shape. They are plant safe.]

I always confuse bladder with pond snails; I'll attach a photo of each (supposedly) and you'll see why, they are very similar. I have one of these and it is certainly not a plant eater. My population in each tank is well under control because (I assume) they need mineral (calcium) in the water and my water is extremely soft. A few do manage to hang on, except in the tank with the loaches, but they don't get very large and are very few, so I suspect this is the reason.

I also have Malaysian Livebearing Snails, which are very helpful, and these don't care anything about the water. They have apparently been known to survive in a bucket of gravel that froze solid outdoors, and when thawed, there the MLS were.

Here are photos of all four mentioned.

I have both ramshorn and one of the pond/bladder snail species - the first of Byron's photos - and neither of them have eaten any plants. The ramshorns that came on my plants are one of the tiny species that never grow above 3 mm across.
I read somewhere that it is the large beige and brown striped Columbian ramshorn, Marisa cornuarietis, that is the real plant eater.

I also have Malaysian Livebearing Snails, which are very helpful, and these don't care anything about the water.

Click to expand...

Great little snail I just cant understand why people do not like them, Malaysian Livebearing Snails are a fish keepers best friend especially in planted tanks. If your snail population is exploding its because there is lots of food in the tank for them, just leave them be, do not remove them, once they eat all the detritus rotting plant matter and uneaten food there numbers will stabilize and drop to what the tank can sustain food wise.

The only thing deadlier to MTS than Clown Loaches and assassin snails are hungry female Bettas.

Fun fact.

Did you know Great pond snail ( Lymnaea stagnalis ) can grow to 8cm.

Image not my work.

Byron said:

I would be more concerned over the reverse...bladder snails will not eat healthy plants, just algae and dead plant tissue. It is the Ramshorn I would watch carefully...while most sources say they are plant-friendly, I have had members report quite the opposite. I've never had them, at least not since decades ago and I cannot remember what they were into back then.

Click to expand...

That's a relief, I haven't seen any of the snails eat anything but algae and dead plant matter. I'll be sure to keep an eye on all snails though.

Byron said:

Your egg masses could be either species as both lay eggs. I assume they would look very much the same, but maybe an expert can tell us differently. [Diana Walstad on her website says the egg masses look the same (pond and Ramshorn). She also mentions that "pond" snail refers to several species all found in ponds, but having the same basic shape. They are plant safe.]

Click to expand...

More eggs were laid last night (about three more) they're all white masses, I assume these are from the ramshorn because I saw them breeding yesterday.

Byron said:

I always confuse bladder with pond snails; I'll attach a photo of each (supposedly) and you'll see why, they are very similar. I have one of these and it is certainly not a plant eater. My population in each tank is well under control because (I assume) they need mineral (calcium) in the water and my water is extremely soft. A few do manage to hang on, except in the tank with the loaches, but they don't get very large and are very few, so I suspect this is the reason.

I also have Malaysian Livebearing Snails, which are very helpful, and these don't care anything about the water. They have apparently been known to survive in a bucket of gravel that froze solid outdoors, and when thawed, there the MLS were.

Click to expand...

They are 100% Bladder snails, they look exactly like the bladder snail from your picture. I wanted to buy some MTS at my LFS but they said that currently there is a ban on importing pretty much all snails into my country. So no MTS for me right now.....

NickAu said:

Great little snail I just cant understand why people do not like them, Malaysian Livebearing Snails are a fish keepers best friend especially in planted tanks. If your snail population is exploding its because there is lots of food in the tank for them, just leave them be, do not remove them, once they eat all the detritus rotting plant matter and uneaten food there numbers will stabilize and drop to what the tank can sustain food wise.

Click to expand...

Right now they are laying eggs like crazy. I assume this is because they have lots of food as the tank has only been set up for 2 weeks and there's only shrimp and three baby BNs in there (BNs were only added yesterday).

There a good write up on snails in this forum http://www.fishforums.net/threads/freshwater-snail-species-in-the-hobby.424364/

Looking at the thread again, I have a species of Physid snail because mine are sinistral.
And my mini ramshorn snails are a species of Planorbid.


Edit to add - the snail in Nick's photo is dextral so it is a species of Limnaeid.