another snail question

fish_freak

fish_freak

Retired Mod
Feb 15, 2002
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Great Barrington, MA
IVe decdied to get snails to take care of a diatom problem I have my question is I was told MTS snails will do well in an african tank. but they are live bearers so I am woried that they might get out of hand. Any other types of snails that will live in a brackish tank? and eat diatoms?
 
You have yor africans in brackish water?Why?

Yes they are livebearing snails but snails only over run tanks that are being over fed. If you keep a clean tank without lots of left over food or plant matter for the snails to eat then the population won't over run your tank.

I have snails in some of my other tanks and they dont' over run them unless i get slack about cleaning and there is some plant matter or food accumulating on the bottom.
 
africans cichlids from the rift lakes are freshwater fish. The rift lakes they are from have alot of salt in them. almost enough to be considered brackish water. So there in that type of water because they will not thrive in fresh water. The Ph is also high and there is alot of trace elements in the water. I didnt metion this in my fist question that is why I said it when I asked the second time. btw I decided to go with apple snails I dont know how theyll do in the water but there fine so far.
 
Africans(from lake victoria,malawi and tang.) are not from brackish water. The water in the lake malawi ranges from 7.8-8.5 and the conductivity measures 200-260. Its water is hard and alkaline but not brackish. Some people add salt to their tanks but they aren't talking about regualr salt(sodium chloride) they are talking about cichlid salts or eptsom(sp?) salt that help make the water harder.There is a bit of slat in the rift lakes but its not enough to be considered brackish.

How much salt are you adding to your tank?

Africans will thrive and live in freshwater, aquarium salt should only be used really for medicating purposes. I use 1-2TBSP/10g when I'm treating scrapes and such but dont use it all the time.

Some of the cichlid buffers include salt(NaCl) but not in brackish concentrations.

Read this article http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_salts.php and the others at cichlid-forum http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/chemistry_list.php

Depending on how much salt you are adding snails might not fair well
 
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