How Many Snails Per Gallon?

[theking]

I have 1 mystery snail and I wanted to add some Malaysian Trumpet snails to my aquarium. I was hoping you guys could tell me what the rule is as far as snails go.

 

[Chad]

If you add Malaysian trumpet snails they will multiply and turn into many of them. I like them myself but for some tanks they can get to plague levels.

 

[theking]

How can I prevent them from multiplying? do they lay eggs above the water like the mystery snails do?
also - I do have two blue gouramis, if the snails were to multiply - would the gourami be able to eat the small ones?

 

[Chad]

I've only been able to control them via predators. Clown loach eat them, dwarf puffers, and assassin snails.

 

[theking]

Ok I understand.

Do you know by any chance what the rule is for shrimps?

thanks

 

[Chad]

It really depends on the shrimp. I have 25 cherry shrimp in 6 gallons and they are perfectly at home. Most freshwater shrimp can go in a smaller tank as long as it's kept very clean. They don't like dirty water. So while they can be kept in smaller, larger is better. How big and how old is the tank you want to put them in?

 

[theking]

29gallon was set up in the beginning of september, tank is fully cycled.

 

[Chad]

You could easily have 20-30 in there no problem. They will breed and do well as long as the fish you have don't eat them. I keep my population down with the scarlet badis I have in there.

 

[theking]

so you say I can have 20-30 in there even though my tank is about overstocked? here is the setup-

2x blue gouramis 1 male 1 female
2x swordtails females
5x blue neon tetra
2x black tetra
2x glowlight tetra
1x mystery snail

BTW i had 2 ghost shrimps but I assume that they got buried in the gravel when I was vacuuming the gravel its been over 2 months since I last seen them.\

I plan on giving away the swordtails and one gourami to a possible future aquarium of my nephew but it wont happen in the near future.

thanks for all the help

 

[Chad]

Shrimp are quite different in how they add to the bioload than fish are. They don't follow the same stocking rules. I have quite a few in my reef tank as well of different kinds. The main concern with shrimp is clean water and of course getting fish that won't eat them or in some cases that they won't eat the fish.

 

[theking]

alright so just to double check -bottom line is that including all my fish and everything, i can still have about 20 shrimps without having to worry about the tank being overloaded?

oh and I decided to listen to your advice as far as the malaysian snails go, so i will stick to mystery snails and will buy 1 or 2 when i get a chance to visit petsmart

 

[Chad]

Yes. You have to worry more about the fish overloading the shrimp than the other way around. While shrimp do add to your bioload they add very little and in many ways help manage the load through scavenging leftover food. I feel like you're good for a 29 gallon tank.

 

[theking]

Alright, thank you for all the help, I will purchase some shrimps from ebay in the near future.