Trumpet Snail Questions

[tgo]

I just noticed last night I have a couple trumpet snails, which I never thought of buying but I like the idea of these snails. What happens when you vacuum your gravel? Also, I read they're good for sand bottoms because they dig around and circulate it, but are they also good for gravel? Do they eat algae and which kinds? Thanks.

 

[oliesminis]

Trumpet snails are good for the substrate becuase it moves it. how big is your gravel.

if you catch one when vaccing the most that will happen is it will go on alittle ride.

 

[Amunet]

The gravel vac I use isn't strong enough to pick up the medium-larger ones. Usually just pick up the teeny tiny ones.
We have eco-complete in our 29gal tank. It's a mixture of sandy, small gravel sized stuff and the snails tend to stay near the surface.
In our 125... we have sand, and I'm not sure how deep they go, but it seems to be they dig deeper b/c it's easier for them.
They're nice for stirring things up and helping to prevent BGA from occuring, but be warned that they will breed like crazy if you overfeed your tank.

 

[tgo]

my gravel is medium-sized gravel mixed in with larger pea gravel. They seem to be staying close to the surface, I can see two of them so far.

 

[oliesminis]

The bigger the gravel the higher they will stay up because it is harder for them to move large pieces of gravel.

they are ideally suited to sand.

 

[saltynay]

I have a mixture of sand and 1-2cm diameter gravel and I find it a very good mix for MTS as they do shift the sand and dig but there are always a couple crawling along the surface when they come to a it of gravel they can't go under they go above and dig again.