Snails?

[TBA]

I've got three types of snails in my planted tank: m. tuberculata, physa's, and ramshorns. My tank is heavily planted (55 gal. with 3.5 watts/gal. and CO2 added) with 16 neon tetras, 6 serpae tetras, 4 black tetras, 2 SEA's, 3 otos and 16 ghost shrimp.

I recently received the snails as a result of a new Indian fern I introduced, or at least that's when they showed up. I love the new addition of the plant and we kind of like the snails. I've read many books, website articles, and the links on previous message about snails. What I really wanted is each person's own recommendation on whether to add clown loaches, puffers or dwarf cichlids to prey on them to minimize their numbers.

My concern is the puffers or cichlids (kribs., bolivian rams, or blue rams) will feed on the shrimp. The clowns tend to dislike my water parameters (hardness and pH) due to previous tanks I've tried to have them in.

I change approx. 50% of the water weekly and don't feed my fish very often (sometimes only 5-6 times a week) or very much. All the indicators (nitrates, ammonia, fish health, etc.) are great.

[inxs]

I haven't had much luck controling snailpopulations as I've had amanos and ghosts and didn't want to risk them with puffers or loaches.

If you squash the snails with your fingers the fish will eat them - almost any fish.

I did have a small tank with puffers that I would fish out the snails and put into. However I had way to many snails and doing it manually was a pain and never enough.

Puffers will happily consume snails and lots of them, though they will consume shrimp even more happily.

[RTR]

http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/snail.shtml

[pufferfishi8]

its been my experience that clown loaches do a great job of eating BABY snails, and leave the adults alone, which i rather like. your population will stay around the same #.
(i have ramshorns and common pond snails in my tank, all for a puffer in another tank, who devours ALL snails with relish, no matter the size or species).
mostly my plants are ok except for my water sprite which never seems to last before its devoured.
for a brief spell i had a scrappy skunk botia who did a great job with up to medium sized snails which he would suck right out of the shell. during water changes i'd siphon up his empties. however his temperment was so nasty i passed him along to a friend, it would probably hassle your less active fish.
i've also seen feeder goldfish eating baby snails regularly.

[Richer]

I asked this question before... and unfortunately most snail eaters will eat shrimp. A small snail population will not harm your tank. If you find that the population is much too large, then there are a couple of things you should do:

1.) Cut back on feedings. Fish don't need much to eat, I give my fish enough food to finish in under a minute.
2.) Remove any dying+decaying plant matter.

HTH
-Richer

[fishhead]

I put a tiny Tetraodon travancoricus (Indian Dwarf Puffer) in my tank. He is only about 1/8 of an inch, but he can eat a lot of snails. I was worried that he might attack the shrimp (Ghost & Amano), Tetras, or Pencilfish in the tank, but he leaves them all alone. From watching these fish a few times at the LFS it appears that they really only pick at the fins of large fish and ignore smaller ones. He only eats baby snails, the adults are too big for him, but that keeps the population under control, as they lay eggs quite often. Fun to watch him hunt down snails. He actually digs in the gravel a bit to go after the MTSes. He occasionally picks at the adult Ramshorns, but he can't do much to them since they are ten times his size. I am looking for Botia striata for snail control (29 gal tank is too small for Clowns), since I am worried that once he grows larger he might get more scrappy, but he is doing a great job right now. I have heard that Botia striata do not go after shrimp, though I do not know how true that is.

[SuperCar]

Thanks to all that have posted replies. Both pictures are of the same plant. The second picture is actually shortly after I brought it home and it hadn't really grown any. I was told at the time I bought it that it would be shorter and finer (thinner), because the growers grow it emersed rather than submerged, so it grows faster taller and fatter. The people at the shop said that it would be shorter and thinner (and they were right) as it grew new shoots.

The first picture I posted is after about 10-11 months of growth (none of the original shoots are left). It grows a fair amount. To keep the "mesh" from filling up the tank, I have to prune it back every so often.

Regards,
Dave

[Canuck]

What has worked for me as a snail eradicator are gold barbs. I don't see them suggested by anybody else but they eliminated snails in a 20 and and a 30 gallon for me. Though as mentioned above it is very important to control the food supply.

HTH

Dave