Question about WC on a snail only tank

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I have a 5 gallon tank with only two nerite snails in it. I have not done a WC in over a month. Water level is down about 1/3. In your opinion,, how often would it be recommended to do a partial WC or is just topping off good enough? I have lots of anubias in the tank and feed with flake very very little. I leave lights on about 12 hours a day to create algae in the tank. Should I be adding food specific for snails or is the algae enough? I added an algae wafer once and they didn't feed on it.
 
A low maintenance aquarium for sure . I don’t think you have to do a thing but top it off and maybe do a one third water change once a month if you feel like it . How do the plants look ? If they get anemic looking it might be because they’ve taken all the nutrients out of the water . Vallisneria is a plant that does that I think , not sure if others do .
 
The main issues of stopping or mostly stopping WCs from the snails' standpoint would be be gradual CaCO3 and other trace element depletion that would lead to erosion of the old shell and/or growing inferior quality new shell. In the past I've done smaller snail tanks with plants (albeit very basic plants like java fern) where I primarily did top-ups and added mineral replenishments in the new water and only very rarely did a WC for cleaning purposes if I saw some kind of debris buildup that needed to be siphoned out, or if I badly distrubed the substrate somehow. Even done that for small sw "planted" invert setups with macroalgae. That's how I will be running my recently set up Planorbid and java moss bowl too - mostly doing WCs when I disturb the tank by trimming the moss and otherwise just doing top-ups with mineral replenishment. I can't speak to any of those things though from the standpoint of plants that are fancier than java fern/moss or what would happen if there was something like a CO2 system involved, since I've never used those.

If the tank is well established, no need to feed the snails.
I even toss an occasional single shrimp pellet into my Planorbid bowl just to make sure they don't start chewing on each other for protein. They typically mob it within minutes, which suggests they need it. In a more complex ecosystem, that kind of thing is less of an issue. If the snails in this case are eating the flake in a timely way and not just letting it decay, then they're getting something from that and may not necessarily find the same nutrition elsewhere in the tank.

I tend to prefer shrimp pellets as an occasional food for snails since they contain some things that are good for shell formation and they sink which can make them more accessible, but if the snails eating flake well and the new shell growth looks good, why fix what ain't broke.
 
The main issues of stopping or mostly stopping WCs from the snails' standpoint would be be gradual CaCO3 and other trace element depletion that would lead to erosion of the old shell and/or growing inferior quality new shell. In the past I've done smaller snail tanks with plants (albeit very basic plants like java fern) where I primarily did top-ups and added mineral replenishments in the new water and only very rarely did a WC for cleaning purposes if I saw some kind of debris buildup that needed to be siphoned out, or if I badly distrubed the substrate somehow. Even done that for small sw "planted" invert setups with macroalgae. That's how I will be running my recently set up Planorbid and java moss bowl too - mostly doing WCs when I disturb the tank by trimming the moss and otherwise just doing top-ups with mineral replenishment. I can't speak to any of those things though from the standpoint of plants that are fancier than java fern/moss or what would happen if there was something like a CO2 system involved, since I've never used those.


I even toss an occasional single shrimp pellet into my Planorbid bowl just to make sure they don't start chewing on each other for protein. They typically mob it within minutes, which suggests they need it. In a more complex ecosystem, that kind of thing is less of an issue. If the snails in this case are eating the flake in a timely way and not just letting it decay, then they're getting something from that and may not necessarily find the same nutrition elsewhere in the tank.

I tend to prefer shrimp pellets as an occasional food for snails since they contain some things that are good for shell formation and they sink which can make them more accessible, but if the snails eating flake well and the new shell growth looks good, why fix what ain't broke.
Good points here.
 
Big water change once every few weeks to keep everything clean and to replace lost minerals from the water. The plants like the new water as do the snails. The water change should also slow or stop the pH dropping and dissolving the snail's shells.
 

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