# Snails!!!



## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Aren't snails very beneficial to an aquarium? Tell me if I'm wrong but don't they aerate your soil, eat dead plants and feed on algae? Am I misinformed?


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## ObiQuiet (Oct 9, 2009)

Yes, they do those things, though not so much of the algae-eating, and substrate aeration depends on the species.

Why do you ask?


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## Holly12 (Dec 6, 2011)

Yep, snails can be great for tanks. The problem is when you over feed your aquarium and the snails have a population boom... hundreds of snails can have a negative effect on the aquarium's bio load. 

MTS tend to burrow into the substrate which helps to aerate it. From my experience, pond, rams horn and MTS don't eat live plants either. (I've heard some people say they do, but I've got a ton of them - I farm them for my Assassin snails in my 20g - and my plants are fine.)


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Because it seems like some people think they have to get them all out of their tank. Really they should learn how to control them. I love MTS, they are great.


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

I have snails in all my tanks. they consume some of the excess food from messy eaters in larger tanks, and MTS and Assassin Snails burrow, and help aerate the substrate.


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## TooManyTanks (Dec 4, 2011)

I have MTS and pond snails. No harm to my plants so far and they do a decent job cleaning and what not. No algae cleaning tho :/


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

What if any types of snails should you avoid for planted aquariums?


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

I think Rabbit Snails, Mystery Snails, and Apple Snails will eat your plants/some plants.


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## h4n (Dec 23, 2005)

Nerite snail are the best! they do a hell of a job cleaning up green spoted algae on the glass. I have nerite snaill in every tank of mine. my 30g one time the whole front glass was green spot/dust algae, i added 4 nerite snail. Under 2 hours they had trials all over the glass where they cleaned up. The next morning it was cystral clear.


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## Big_Fish (Mar 10, 2010)

+1 for nerites... their eggs ONLY hatch under very specific conditions.. in Brackish water for example.. 
bad news = they're hard to breed.
good news = they will never overrun your tanks.


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## TooManyTanks (Dec 4, 2011)

Are nerite snails ok with MTS and pond snails?


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## Big_Fish (Mar 10, 2010)

yupper! assuming MTS and Pond snails are doing well, nerites will do fine too.


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## TooManyTanks (Dec 4, 2011)

They will do great then because te MTS and pond dont botther eachother


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Always wanted to try nerites, just wanted to set up a brackish tank to breed them in first.


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## TooManyTanks (Dec 4, 2011)

I dint care too much to breed them right now jst want to use then lol


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Ya, lol, want to use them too. [smilie=l:


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

travisk said:


> Always wanted to try nerites, just wanted to set up a brackish tank to breed them in first.


I've attempted this, and it doesn't work for Olive Nerites. That being said, we refer to multiple species when we say "Nerite Snail."

The Olive Nerites that I was working with required full strength salt water, brackish, and then freshwater to complete their metamorphosis. I bet they would need to be bred similar to Amano shrimp.

Disclaimer: I haven't done extensive experiments or tried multiple sources/species. These conclusions are just from y own observations and from talking to other hobbyists. If you have successfully bred Nerite Snails, please create a descriptiver how to thread, I'd be extremely interested.

here is an outside thread (not sure about validity)


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Which nerite would be the easiest to breed in brackish water? Olive nerites were my first choice, but now I'm not so sure.


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## aquaman555 (Mar 22, 2011)

I can add some info on my experience with mystery snails which I believe are the same as apple(?). They will definitely eat decaying plant mater which is nice, but I haven't noticed them eating healthy green parts of plants. I have a gold mystery in a 2.5 with anubias nana and marmimo moss ball and both seem unaffected. In my 29g with a black mystery everything seems fine as well which is red ludwigia, amazon sword, dwarf hair grass, wisteria and java fern. I did notice them munching on anacharis when it was in there. I think its the softer leaf plants they tend to enjoy. Also probably depends on what else is available to them, like left over food. The common little black snails that hitch hike (anyone know the real name of these?) they are the same with my plants. I don't notice too much help with algae, but it does seem like they are always grazing. I can say with hair algae I have ODed with Excel and after the algae started dying back the little black snails ate the dying/dead algae.


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

Wow! Thanks joshvito, what a great link on nerites. Very helpful.


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## kamel_007 (Jan 7, 2006)

how to remove them?
I have probably thousands of them, i dont want them.
The snails i have are small, i think that kind most common but they are hatching and hatching and hatching!! Its annoying, they will over fil my tank soon.
I have angels, discus, and tetra. What could i do to get rid?


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## travisk (Oct 27, 2011)

what kind of snails are they? Got a picture?


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## aquaman555 (Mar 22, 2011)

Removing snails is easy, piece of cucumber or zucchini rubber banded to a rock dropped to tank bottom left over night. It will be filled with them in the morning. Other ways are snail eating fish like loaches. Honestly the nasty, but effective smash method works good not if you have tons of tiny ones though. Avoid chemicals, I highly advise the cucumber/zucchini method.
Also on a second note, honestly I am thinking my mystery snail may be eating the layers off the amazon sword and then they die off, I never really seem to have multiple leaves dying at the same time as I see now. A word of caution, as I might be re-homing him soon.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Loaches will definitely eat them. They love snails like you wouldn't believe. In fact loaches are one of the few fish that lives up to their reputation for getting rid of unwanted things in our tanks. Pretty much all types of loach will eat snails, but in particular Yo-yo loaches, clown loaches and Horse-face loaches will take your snail population down to near 0 within a few weeks.

I had 3 or so clown loaches in my 90g tank and they took the 1000s of snails down to about 5 in about 3-4 weeks. The 5 that lived were too big to be eaten by the young loaches so they were left alone (for later ). If the loaches were any bigger those last 5 would have been eaten too.

If you decide to crush the snails in the tank be careful. There was a guy on the forum a few years ago and one of the snail shells cut his finger as he crushed it. His finger got badly infected with drug resistant bacteria (probably from all the antibiotics we willy nilly dose our aquariums with) and he nearly lost the finger. He had some pretty gruesome pictures in his thread showing before and after the surgery to remove the dead tissue.


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## kamel_007 (Jan 7, 2006)

Zapins said:


> Loaches will definitely eat them. They love snails like you wouldn't believe. In fact loaches are one of the few fish that lives up to their reputation for getting rid of unwanted things in our tanks. Pretty much all types of loach will eat snails, but in particular Yo-yo loaches, clown loaches and Horse-face loaches will take your snail population down to near 0 within a few weeks.
> 
> I had 3 or so clown loaches in my 90g tank and they took the 1000s of snails down to about 5 in about 3-4 weeks. The 5 that lived were too big to be eaten by the young loaches so they were left alone (for later ). If the loaches were any bigger those last 5 would have been eaten too.
> 
> If you decide to crush the snails in the tank be careful. There was a guy on the forum a few years ago and one of the snail shells cut his finger as he crushed it. His finger got badly infected with drug resistant bacteria (probably from all the antibiotics we willy nilly dose our aquariums with) and he nearly lost the finger. He had some pretty gruesome pictures in his thread showing before and after the surgery to remove the dead tissue.


why would i crush the shells?? i just want to remove them away, will loaches be friendly with discus?
how about the shills? with they eat it?


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## aquaman555 (Mar 22, 2011)

By crushing the shells you crush the snails and many fish will love to eat them once outside of their shell. It is nasty IMO and I don't recommend it especially after hearing what Zapins just said. I am not sure on loach/discus compatibility, but here is a pic of the zucchini method.


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