Too many snails?

[Mexican Racoon]

There were small snails with cone shaped shells at my LFS. I told them I wanted some and they said "no you don't".
i said "yeah I do".
and they gave them to me. I thought they all died, then I got home late one night and wanted to show this chick the tank. I turned on the light and saw them EVERYWHERE. they are mostly buried during the day, but there are tons of them. So far, no signs of problems.

should I be worried???

[OhNo123]

Don't need to worry at all. These snails are call Malaysian Trumpet Snails. They burrow in the gravel to lease gas pockets and circulate the gravel. They are mostly active at night and are great for planted tanks. If you feed them plenty, they will be everywhere.

[kimmisc]

Several months ago, I really wanted some snails, so I ordered 8 red ramshorn snails on ebay. Then shortly after, I bought some live plants, which introduced pond snails to my tanks as well.

Last week, I finished bleaching all my tanks to get rid of the hundreds of snails in them, and spent countless hours washing, picking through gravel, moving fish from here to there... This week I've smashed about 5-6 baby pond snails in my HOB filters. Apparently all eggs didn't die, despite my best efforts.

I don't know if MTS multiply like pond and ramshorn snails, but if they do, I sure hope you like them lots. I personally will think twice anytime someone tells me I don't want something, again. :) It depends on how much you continue to love the "snails everywhere" look.

[Mexican Racoon]

they only leave the substrate at night. so the look isn't an issue. if all they are doing is breaking down uneaten food and stirring the gravel, then cleaning the glass at night, well. yay.

[soobie]

As long as you don't overfeed the tank, the snails won't get out of hand.

[ThePBM]

yep. they can only eat what your fish don't. and if there's enough to feed the snails then there's your problem.

[Ralleh]

I have 6 different species of small aquatic snails in my tank and they're all starting to breed like crazy. I think if they go nuts I will let a crayfish loose in the tank for a while to decimate the population.
I did this before and they crunch up the shell and then suck the snail up like spaghetti. It's pretty cute if you ask me. A couple days of a small crayfish munching snails would not lead to too much plant damage I would think.

Something to consider instead of nuking the tank from orbit.

[ThePBM]

nuking a tank is probably the worst way to handle the situation. imagine how 1000000 dead snail corpses are going to affect your water chemistry. even then you'll still have to pick or vac them out.

[Mexican Racoon]

I would worry about a crayfish messing with my Ram or Rapheal cat.

I may cut back on feeding though. As I said, I don't mind them if they aren't harmful.