Malaysian Trumpet snails

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danielb

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Jul 1, 2004
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I'm currently toying with the idea of adding a couple of Malaysian Trumpet snails to my planted 75 litre tank to help arete the gravel and keep the tank tidy. My only concern is will they over run the tank completly? I've done some reading up on them on the web and it would seem they are ideal only eating dead plant matter, old fish food and other debris. Most of the places I've seen them for sale have been selling them in batches of 10, which seems like a lot.

I already have a golden algee eater (loach) and two small corys in the tank to help keep it clean and tidy.

Advice welcome!

Daniel
 

daveedka

Purple is the color of Royalty
Jan 30, 2004
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My personal preference is to neer ever have a tank without snails again. the benifits are extreme IMO. But to each their own. I will say that once you Put MTS's in a tank you will have a time getting them out if you change your mind. But Getting rid of them isn't something I have ever tried to do. This article contains some basic details on population control, good and bad points etc. As said very basic though.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50705
dave
 

danielb

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Thanks for the advice and the links. I think I'm going to take the plunge and buy some and I've been trying to source some snails and all I can find so far are these these ones on ebay. I found another shop selling them for about 50-60 pence but they wanted almost £5 postage!
 

danielb

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Swimfins said:
Go to your lfs, often they give them away for free. I took only 2 and now have hundreds.
I'll give them an email and see what they say, my lfs is about 20 miles away but it is very good (they might actually be too good and not have any pests like MTS)
Swimfins said:
I could give you 50 or 60 easily if you were closer lol
Its the thought that counts though!
 

reiverix

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Sep 4, 2004
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I'm sure your LFS will have some. It's surprising how many MTS are hidden underneath the substrate. I can understand people paying for the more fancy snails but MTS are common enough.
 

danielb

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Just got an email back from LFS, they don't sell any MTS. Guess its back to looking at mail order then :(
 

deeplove

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Oct 23, 2005
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Where else can you find MTS? Only online? I've tried a couple of the shops around my way and I can't get an answer. They even look at me funny.
 

redilyn

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Jan 31, 2005
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none of the lfs in my area sell them either. try aquabid.com i got mine there from owengibson.
 
Mar 24, 2005
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On this note I have a snail problem. All my (well 5) ramshorn (I think they were the red, they were brown colored but I got them from a friend with an overrun tank and the biggest hers were was like less than an inch) died fairly quickly, based on the thin looking shell I think maybe from lack of calcium? I've aquired probably about 4 pond snails with my plants but I have yet to see an outbreak. Sometimes I go the lfs and ask for their pest MTS's so I've put quite a few of those in my tank but I never, ever see them. Although when I switched everything from my 20 gal to the 30 gal I found some live ones amongst the gravel so maybe they aren't dying, they just aren't breeding either.

Anyways my question is how do I get these guys to breed. I like the look of snails, I like MTS's aerating my probably too deep gravel, I just can't seem to get any to stick around.

Also I should mention they are in my dwarf puffer tank. The puffers picked on the ramshorns pretty badly, although it was still alive a couple weeks later. But after that they seemed to lose their taste for snail and would kind of hover around any snail that would climb on the glass but seemed more to be supervising than making a meal, they don't really touch the snails anymore.

Anyways sorry to add this to a topic, but thanks for any advice.

And my little bit for this topic, if there are any sites or forums specifically for your area you could try there. See if anyone lives by a lfs that gives them away or if anyone has an outbreak and would be willing to give you some. You'd probably have to pick them up or pay for postage, but it'd probably be cheaper than ordering from a website.
 
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