How many Snails?

[ChickenScratch930]

Hi,

I have a 20 gallon planted tank with 4 brilliant rasboras and a ton of ivory snails. I had 4 full grown snails which layed a bunch of eggs that hatched before I found them. I had about fifty of the little snails crawling around my tank. I knew that was too many so I started feeding some of them to my crayfish, and I have thrown about a dozen into my goldfish tank. I want to keep as many as I can, I still have about 30, but I don't know how many I can put in a 20 gallon tank.

So basically my question is how many apple snails can I comfortably keep in a 20 gallon tank?

Also if I max out on snails, will there be enough stuff left to eat if I wanted to get a plecostamus or some ghost shrimp?

Thanks, Seth .

 

[Snailguy101]

The pleco will be to big for a 29 gallon you can have about 5 apple snails I thjink

 

[Teelie]

Far more than 5. Maybe as many as 20 or 30 if it's well decorated and maintained but you'll have more luck with closer to maybe 10. Too many of them and you have a lot of snails to feed, water changes to do and of course, mad breeding.

 

[ChickenScratch930]

Ok thanks for your replies wow I didn't realize how big plecostamuses could get!

 

[Teelie]

Commons get to as much as 16" and Sailfins as large as 24" in length. Some of the others can grow nearly 3 feet in length though I doubt that's obtainable in the aquarium. Most of the L-numbers and quite a few other common species are actually quite small, less than 8"

 

[ChickenScratch930]

Wow, I'm glad I found that out before I decided to get one. Maybe I'll get a few cory cats instead