Do Snails Add Masively To The Bio Load

[LJEV]

Theres been quite a few people on lately saying they have snail promlems,
Not that i`m that keen on them, and I`m starting to get quite a few myself but other than munching on your plants, why are they a problem ?
Do they produce much waste and add to the Bio load of the tank ? and are they benificial to the tank in any way ? ie. is it best to get rid of them all or , if they provide a service, keep some ?

 

[mbsqw1d]

Theres been quite a few people on lately saying they have snail promlems,
Not that i`m that keen on them, and I`m starting to get quite a few myself but other than munching on your plants, why are they a problem ?
Do they produce much waste and add to the Bio load of the tank ? and are they benificial to the tank in any way ? ie. is it best to get rid of them all or , if they provide a service, keep some ?

when i first got mine (from the first live plants i bought from pet shop) I found them to be a pest as there where lots of them. I later found them to be useful as an indicator for overfeeding. If you feed your fish properly there shouldnt be enough to feed the snails. Overfeeding = food for snails.

 

[mattyp84]

the live in the substrate so they turn this over, east algea and waste food etc

tbh i think there a good addition to any tank

and they only come out at night, weirdly enough im looking to breed them

 

[drobbyb]

The problem with pest snails is that they are difficult to maintain a stable population of them. A few snails won't significantly affect your bio-load, but hundreds of them will. Pest snails are either having a population explosion or they are starving to death (incidentally, their rotting corpses produce more ammonia than they do when they are alive).

If you want a few snails to eat algae, get apple snails or nerite snails as they require special conditions to successfully breed and you can maintain a stable population of them quite easily.