View Full Version : Small Snails Bad?
M.Anderson
03-03-2006, 2:16 PM
I recently purchased a few plants from my LFS and after introducing the plants into my tank, I noticed several small snails throughout the aquarium. Will these affect the wellbeing of the plants or fish? Any input would be appreciated, thank you guys.
-M.Anderson
the very small snails dont eat living, healthy plants, (only if their leaves are rotting)... but they DO eat uneaten fish food, and algie... in a large group they will do a better job at eating algie than any algie- eating fish in my openion...
if you dont want them, just take every singe one out that you see, do this every day for about a month (looking under the hood, and around rocks... and they will dissappear.
hurricanejedi
03-03-2006, 2:23 PM
Its pretty common to get hitchhiker snails on plants. Long term they could reproduce pretty quickly depending on what kinds they are. I'm also noticing a lot of baby snails from my plants. They shouldn't hurt things. You just want to watch our for their numbers.
mooman
03-03-2006, 3:01 PM
The hobby is rife with accounts of these "pond snails" taking over tanks, but the general consensus is that this only happens in tanks that are: overfed, undercleaned, overgrown with algae, or a combination of these. If regular gravel vacing is done, and you don't overfeed, what you will eventually have is a population of snails equal to the food (algea) supply and a nice clean tank. You will have more than a few. They will be noticable. The population will usually explode beyond what your tank can support and then die back (just as populations do in nature) This drives some people crazy. Don't let it bother you. Snails are a natural and necessary part of any aquatic ecosystem.
I recently lost a bunch of dwarf cichlids in my 29g (they eat small snails) and within a week had baby snails everywhere. A week after that every spot of algae that had been making my plants and tank look dingy was gone. The tank has never looked better. I love my pond snails.
M.Anderson
03-03-2006, 3:55 PM
Thank you for the replies. As long they do not affect my plants and fish I don't mind them. And if they will help clean the tank, thats just a bonus!
-M.Anderson
fish_freak
03-03-2006, 4:08 PM
There probably MTS snails of Malasyin Trumpet Snails (sp) do a search of the forum for MTS and youll get a ton of threads on them.