aquarium snails

[silvershark]

ok i've read time and time again about people gettin peeved off about tank snails, how come?!?! i added snails to mine on purpose and all they do is eat any left over food and waste, ie dead plant matter. i added about 40-50 to my 100litre(around 25ish gallons i think) and they dont seem to wanna do any harm or breed like crazy yet!! do they do anything bad apart from stir up the sub, eat left overs and clean the tank naturally?! ok sorry dont wanna sound rude but is there really anything wrong with having them?

 

[FrAnK3333]

Snails breed like crazy! I had 2 in my 5 gallon, in 2 months I had 100s. Thier pests IMO. If you like them keep them.

 

[paige]

they just anoy me because they breed like mad once u'v got them u cant get rid of them and there all over the front of the glass its just sooo anoying

 

[silvershark]

oh! ok i've only ever seen 5-10 out at a time, and like i said i had about 50-60 of the buggers, and thats at night under the moonlamp!! i have admitedly picked out about 3-4 empty shells so maybe something is eating them!?!?

 

[pendragon]

i have admitedly picked out about 3-4 empty shells so maybe something is eating them!?!?

What other fish do you have in the tank?

pendragon!

 

[paige]

oh! ok i've only ever seen 5-10 out at a time, and like i said i had about 50-60 of the buggers, and thats at night under the moonlamp!! i have admitedly picked out about 3-4 empty shells so maybe something is eating them!?!?

the fish dont normaly eat them they just die somtimes r u sure u can only c a couple i bet there breeding like mad wait a couple of months and ur glass will be coverd in them unless there dieing

 

[silvershark]

a bala(at the moment), 6 neon tetra 6 glolight, 1 cory sterbai, 1 female betta and a guppy. bit of a weird combo i know but these were the fish i first bought when i started out and had trust in the "fish expert(ha!)" that advised me, however they all seem happy and are all VERY healthy!!

and paige, i didnt say there were only a few i just said thats all i can see i got a sand sub so i expect they will be breeding but they wont hurt anything un-aesthetic will they?

 

[DarkSide]

I don't find a problem with them. People find them as 'evil' because they breed very fast, and some eat your plants, but if you have some certain type of fish that eat snails you shouldn't have a problem, plus if you have puffers you could just scoop out snails and feed them to the puffers.

 

[abstract]

well the thing is, it may take time for you to notice an increase in numbers but eventually it will become more and more noticeable......maybe you have so many now that there isn't enough food to sustain them therefore they dont breed (they breed exponentially with the amount of wasted/excess food they find in the tank) ...as they beging to find more excess food and/or their numbers decrease slightly they WILL reproduce, but this CAN be at a manageable rate if you use methods to remove the snails (i.e. sticking a piece of lettuce in there overnight and then removing it in the morning along with the snails)...

 

[pendragon]

You don't have any snail-eating fish in the tank, so I feel very sure that's not happening. You're probably just not seeing them. You will eventually.

pendragon!

 

[FrAnK3333]

Actaully, bettas have been knowen to like to eat snails.

 

[jflowers]

Yep, bettas love baby snails.

I like snails too, just depends on the species, common pond snails that hitchhike in on plants can quickly become a pest, others species can be a boon for the tank. For example, the malasian trumpet snail is good for tanks with a sand substrate as they keep it moving and stired up. Pomacea Bridgisii (Golden apple snails) will leave plants alone, but munch on algae and left over fish food.

Go to the invertabrates forum and have a read of the pinned posts, both on pest snails and the other beneficial types.

Jon

 

[phishluvr]

well, i can say i used to love my snails. They did a pretty good job keeping the tank clean and tidy, and didn't seem evasive for years. They tended to stay balanced with food supply.

Then I switched filters to a Fluval and during the transition, the nitrates went up a bit and although I didn't see more algae, the amount of snails increased dramatically. assumably to balance the increase in food supply. Well, the tank is balanced and has been for some time now, but the snail population did not! I was constantly picking out the little buggers (l100+ weekly... no kidding!!!) I added a couple of clown fish and they're doing the trick. Every so often, there's a bloom of new snails but within a couple of days, the numbers are back down. All is well again...they control the algae, the loaches control them.

Guess it doesn't take much to have a population explosion. Maybe yours will stay in check.

 

[jflowers]

I added a couple of clown fish and they're doing the trick. Every so often, there's a bloom of new snails but within a couple of days, the numbers are back down. All is well again...they control the algae, the loaches control them.

Your khulis probably do a better job than the clowns as they are small and can get into small spaces to consume the baby snails and eggs.

Clowns are great fish with great personality and you have a tank that will support them, wish I had.

Jon

 

[Spyderdf]

it depends on what kinda snails..

MTS breed like crazy and are very hard to get ride of, and dont always look to great.

Apple snails you can control the population by taking eggs out(usually laid above the waterline) and they look good.