Malaysian Trumpet Snails

[fry_lover]

I bought some off e-bay, about 30 of them for my 300 litre / 67 UK-Gallon, community set-up

The tank is MASSIVELY planted and the plants are thriving

Fish are live-bearers, tetra's gouramis and corydoras

Substrate is sand about 2" deep at front and 3" deep at back (i have a lot of onion plants hence one of the reasons for 3" sand at back as these plants have big roots)

I mostly got them due to having quite a deep amount of sand in my tank and i was worried about the sand not getting turned over or agitated at all. I can't do this manually as the tank is so full of plants. I was worried about these stories of toxic gases escaping from the sand if it gets compacted.

QUESTIONS:

1. I hardly have any ordinary snails in this tank which i am pleased about, but by adding Malaysian Trumpet snails is there a risk i will be over run with snails in the coming months?

2. Are they necessary, for the purpose of trying to agitate the sand a little or will they not make much difference?

3. Overall, are they worth having, what are the pro's and con's of having them in my heavily planted community tank?

4. Do they add to the bio-load?

thanks

 

[Teelie]

1. Yes, though if you keep the food amount to an appropriate level (ie; not overfeeding) you won't see or have much of a problem with them.
2. That's personal preference I think. They certainly don't harm anything and they do help agitate and stir the sand as well as eat anything that sits on top but the risk of toxic air bubbles is usually minimal to begin with. With plants they do help keep the sand turning over and prevent compaction so it's not a bad idea to keep them there.
3. They are worth having depending on your set up. The only cons to them is they are quick to breed and reproduce with live young as opposed to eggs meaning keeping their population down is harder to do than with egg-layers. I don't know of any cons for them in a planted tank but I've got plenty in a non-planted tank and other than swarming leftovers, they don't do much harm.
4. They're living things so they add to the bio-load but that is heavily dependent on their diet and how many of them there are. They're relatively low waste producers if only because of their small size but they can make up for it in numbers.

 

[fry_lover]

am now having second thoughts about adding trumpet snails to my community planted set-up, which is a shame as i bought them specially off e-bay. If i dont keep them i will give them away, dont want to kill them. I am currently looking after them, almost like they were fish, they in a plastic container with some lettuce and having water changes

shall i add the 20 or so i have to my set-up in the belief that the pro's outweigh the con's ?

 

[DarkEntity]

Malasians are great for sand tanks as they dig and stop anearobic pockets forming. In a gravel and planted tank i see no use for them. I always find that snails cause more waste than good they do.

 

[Matty P]

Do pond snails dig sand aswel?

 

[Teelie]

Pond snails don't. They might bury themselvse partly in the sand but they don't dig.

 

[jayjay]

Malasians are great for sand tanks as they dig and stop anearobic pockets forming. In a gravel and planted tank i see no use for them. I always find that snails cause more waste than good they do.

Anaerobic conditions get rid of nitrate though, even if the gases do form, they are harmless as soon as they come into contact with the water. So the anaerobic pockets aren't that bad really, I've never seen any supported proof of the gases killing a fish either.

I never have any success keeping 'pest' snails, there's not enough food in my tanks to support them. If they survived I would keep them though, the pro's out weigh the con's in my eyes (smaller species, this is).

 

[Teelie]

I actually have had the anaerobic pockets in my shellie tank and they go straight up. Only the largest ones had a faint smell to them and no shellies died or even acted funny.