i need a snail eating fish???

ok thanx guys, im a newbie to having a fish tank, i do a water change every 2 weeks, is this not enough??? i have a 35L tank and about 10 neons and 4 guppies in there.... and cant forget the 40 snails.......lol the tank always looks clean, i vacume the gravel evry 2 weeks also...... guess ill c how the lettuce goes

thanx alot
jess:D
 
I'd do a 30% change every week. Really though, the absolute best way to tell is to test your nitrates. Try to keep them below 20 ppm.

Of course, if you were to have, say, a planted tank where nitrates were consumed and stayed below 20ppm, that wouldn't mean that you'd never need to do water changes. Weekly, or at least bi-weekly, changes would be needed to replenish the minerals that are in the water.

But yes, I think you should increase the frequency of your water changes, seeing how the tank is heavily stocked. More frequent water changes, along with more frequent gravel vac-ing, will help get rid of all the gunk in the substrate that the snails are feeding from.
 
How do you raise snails to feed to clown loaches? Easy. Take some pond or rams horn snails. Get a small tank or else get an old ice cream container. Add the snails, a little gravel, and some food. Brocolli, cucumber, fish food, lettuce, celery all work well. The snails will start to multiply. Then when you need to get some out try to pick them out or else place a piece of veggie in the tank and wait until it is covered in snails.


And I agree that weekly water changes are a better way to go. It will keep the tank healthier. Plucking out as many snails as possible either with some veggie or by hand will eventually reduce the amount of snails in the tank.

Had A Snail is a copper based poison. It works on the idea that the poison isn't quite bad enough to kill your fish. But if the fish were weak and you used a little too much then not so good.
 
Originally posted by TKOS
How do you raise snails to feed to clown loaches? Easy. Take some pond or rams horn snails. Get a small tank or else get an old ice cream container. Add the snails, a little gravel, and some food. Brocolli, cucumber, fish food, lettuce, celery all work well. The snails will start to multiply. Then when you need to get some out try to pick them out or else place a piece of veggie in the tank and wait until it is covered in snails.
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That was my idea, but ive had a couple rams horn snails for about a month, and they dont multiply ever, just found two of those little ones that look like uhhh, cant think of what they are right now, but I added them, im gona raise them in my newt cage, he goes in the water once in a while, but I dont think he will eat them if he does im sure it wont be bad for him.
 
What kind of snail did you purchase. If you want snails for your tank I reccomend Applesnails, and the species promcea bridgessii(sp?) is very good to have. They get fairly large but they do not eat live plants and if you get more than one or a pregnant one they lay their eggs above the water in a clutch. The clutch is easy to remove and just through away. They are also very enjoyable snail to have. I have one female in my 10g community tank and she keeps it clean like no other, I have never had an algae problem with her around. So when going into snails do applesnails.
-Conor
 
Apple snails is actually a very broad catagory of snails. Some do eat live plants, others don't.

As for getting rams to breed, well I guess it helps i you have a female. How to tell? I have no idea. Obviously the more you start with the better your odds. They also have to be of breeding size, which is close to pencil eraser size for the rams. Pond snails are also very easy to get breeding. They are the flat sipral kind.

Make sure to give good food to them. Cucumber, broccoli etc... are really. If you don't pre blanch (in boiling water) it can sometimes take a couple of days to start to decompose and seem suitable to the snails.
 
I was referring the species Promcea Brdgessii the most commonly sold. I did mention this species as the one that does not eat aquatic plants and lays eggs above the water. But when buying applesnails beware of the Marisa it eats aquatic plants like no other and lays its eggs underwayter which sometimes are hard to find.
-Conor
 
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