Howdy

[SMinNC]

Hey everyone,

No, I don't have a major problem... yet. I figured this would be a good place to wander around and refresh my memory a little.

I've had fish aquariums off and in for quite a few years now.
Dabbled with a live plant here n there. Owned a small fish store for a yr, etc's.

Right now I've just started up a 30 gal. / 36" long tank.
I'm considering this, my 1st Planted Tank.

The Why and Goal of this tank was/is pretty simple.
Raise some food(Snails) for my brother's Dwarf Puffer's. And get myself some Planted tank experience.

I'm on an extremely low budget for this. And so far, around 95%+ of everything. Was already lying around, waiting to be used.

My Biggest problem so far. Is the lack of snails hitching a ride on the few plants I bought. It seems everyone is doing everything they can to sell snail free plants these days.

I guess thats about it, for an introduction. I'll look around for other specific threads for posting, whatevers.

Thanks for having me,
David

[stezatois]

Ok heres a tip, you want a planted tank and you want snails for your bro. Most lfs will give you MTS (malaysian trumpet snails) They can be concidered a pest, but are fab for a planted tank, and breed readily. The hard shells are good to help keep the puffers 'beak' trimmed too.

[stezatois]

oh yeh and welcome to the community lol.

[SMinNC]

He did get some MTS with some plants. I'm planning on going to that store next weekend.
Everywhere I've read(so far) about MTS. Said the shells were too hard for fish to break. But they never refered to "puffers", just loaches, etc. So I've been wondering if his little puffers, maybe 1/2 an inch total. Would be able to crunch the shells of MTS that are about as big as themselves?

I'm thinking the Ramshorn / MTS combo for my tank would be nice.
I don't think I mentioned it. But I'm looking fwd to some shrimp. Even if they're just the ghost/ feeder type.

[Hurley]

Hi! Welcome to AC. I've got a pair of cichlids that do a number to my MTS so I would think the puffers would be able to take them on.

[stezatois]

especially the younger smaller ones. Thing with puffers is that if you cant find a way to keep the beaks trim then they may land up needing dental work, i was reading an article in practical fish keeping magazine. A guy detailing how he does his puffers dental work.
As for loaches, mine love the mts, they cant break the shells but they dont break any of the pond shells anyway.

[msjinkzd]

Welcome to AC! Ramshorn snails would be perfect or pond/bladder snails.

[Vicious_Fish]

Welcome! :)

[H3D]

Welcome to AC! :dance:

[Rbishop]

Glad to have you here!

[Mgamer20o0]

Welcome to AC.

[SMinNC]

Thanks for all the welcomes. : )

Looks like lots of good stuff, and people here.