How did a snail get in my tank?

[TeaPea]

There's a small white-shelled snail on the side of my 29G tank. How the heck did it get there? I vaguely remember reading something about this along time ago...Is this a good thing, or bad? Should I remove it?


TIA

[Winnie]

You gotta figure he rode in on a plant or even was inside a bag of a new fish you got and could have been so tiny you didn't see it.
As for removing it, depends if you like snails I guess...

[thom336]

Snails can get into aquariums in many ways - and as mentioned by Winnie they generally arrive in attached to plants, or with new fish arrivals. From personal experiance I would say get rid of it - as they will overrun your tank if not kept in check. When they die snails do pollute the water - but I am guessing yours is rather small and so it wouldnt be a problem in that respect. I like afew snails in my tanks, as they do a good job of cleaning the algae, but you have got to keep numbers down, destroying eggs (clear, and just above the water surface) when they appear, and keeping good aquarium husbandry as they wont breed much if water conditions are good - but if water conditions do go downhill at any point, even if only for a brief while, then you may end up with a plague of snails.

The choice really is upto you - they have both up sides and down sides.

Thom.

[OrionGirl]

Not all snails lay their eggs emmersed. Many will lay them on plant leaves, gravel, or on the glass, it really depends on the species. I've nver had too many snails, but I have a crowd of fish that are pretty stingy about sharing food with something as slow as a snail. Controlling nutrients is the easiest way to control snails, IMO, though removing eggs, and having fish that eat either the eggs or the snails will help as well.

However, if the snails is white, I would suspect that your tank has soft water, low KH? If that's the case, you probably won't have a big problem, since the whiteness indicates that the calcium is being leached from the snails shell. They don't survive or reproduce very well in this kind of water.

[TeaPea]

Thanks for the info everybody. You are correct, Oriongirl, my water is very soft. I guess I'll leave the little guy for now. There's only one so far...

[TeaPea]

What is the difference between the snail I'm describing and "Mystery Snails", which I've seen for sale?

[OrionGirl]

Yours is most likely a common pond snail--different species. Common ponds snails don't get as large as many of the species which are sold, and reproduce in copious quantities if there are enough nutrients to support the population. Mystery snails are usually just a grab bag of ramshorn, MTS, and apple snails.