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Stowaway Snails - Good or Bad?

Big clown said:
Mainly a good part of the clean up crew
Can become a bit unsightly if population explodes due to poor maintenance and overfeeding. Theres been a few recent threads about problem snails as some people dont like seeing them in the tank but thats down to personal preference
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Thanks Big Clown! I don't mind them tbh, and if their helping to keep the tank clean and stable, then i'm happy to have them. I'm pretty stringent with maintenance, and won't be over feeding the fish, once they go in. Thanks again.
 
Personally I find them annoying, but tolerate them as they're a good sign of overfeeding. My main display only have them in the sump, with makes me suspect that the inhabitants are using them as live food, but they're bigger than the average planted tank inhabitant. My shrimp tank has many, but not excessive numbers, my fry tank has an explosion of them but it helps keep excess food under control.
 
Be warned, most plants are fine but some are irresistible snacks for snails. My ramshorn and pond snails love to chomp on the Amazon Frogbit floaters, luckily these plants grow fast so are surviving. Note, to start with I thought the snails were just eating parts of dead Frogbit, but I've now observed them eating holes in perfectly healthy plants.
 
I think i will wait and see what happens. My tank has only been up and running for 3 weeks. So i'm not feeding anything as yet, and i have only seen one snail so far. Hopefully they won't get to out of hand. I'm planning on adding some Amano's or cherry Reds, along with some otto's once the tank has cycled. Hopefully they will out compete them for food?
 
Like i said, i don't mind them, i just don't want to be over run with them. Theres obviously some benefits to having them in the tank. I did read that the population would grow if over feeding was taking place? I'm also guessing that shrimp, and the ottos would also take care of any waste food, as a result keeping the number of snails in check? Obviously i plan to be very carful to not over feed the fish once they go in.
 
If you have shrimps and otos you can put algae wafers in the tank and after some times if you find that have not finished it then remove it. You can also place some pebbles in a container by the window to grow algae and put them in the tank to let the shrimps and oto graze on it. While some of the snails will eat algae i don't believe they will be as effect at doing so than shrimps and otos. If you do find yourself having a snail outbreak the best way is to cut down feeding and or manually removal. If you think your not overfeeding then you can place a piece of vegetable prior to lights out and an hour or so later go back to the tank and take it out. You will find lots of snails on it and around it so its the perfect time to remove them.
 
No problem :) I have snails in all my tanks as i believe they are very helpful to the tanks even if they do over populate as it will indicate overfeeding which in turn could lead to various problems to water quality and as a result stress out shrimps and fish.
 
Lee Sweeting said:
Thanks Big Clown! I don't mind them tbh, and if their helping to keep the tank clean and stable, then i'm happy to have them.
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Unfortunately, this may be another prime example of the illusionary power of The Matrix. In a sort of "law of mass conservation" way these vermin will excrete a fair amount of toxic waste, and will remove almost as much precious Oxygen from the water as occurs during the decay of uneaten food. The more food they eat the more they grow and the more waste they produce, the more Oxygen they consume. And because they move at a snails pace, some food still remains uneaten and rots. The only way to improve the "cleaning" coverage is to have lots of them crawling over your tank, which defeats the purpose. I suppose, some species are prized for there reputed removal of algae from hardscape, but these are often huge, garish and unsightly. The better policy, naturally, is to just not get algae, which renders them redundant.

Infestation can be reduced significantly by application of Super-Mega-Ultra-Nova-High CO2 concentration levels........which.....of course, may not be a suitable option if there are fish present in the tank. And of course, this treatment may not have much of an impact on eggs, so execution of repeated carpet bombing missions via modulation of your knurled needle valve knob is necessary. Be sure to remove the debris. Many will seek refuge by escaping via the tank wall.

CO2 is the gaseous version of duct tape. It's usefulness and application are innumerable....

Feed your fish predominantly live foods, which can be done at a significantly reduced interval (owing to it's higher energy), to mitigate the increased cost, and live food will never remain uneaten.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
Unfortunately, this may be another prime example of the illusionary power of The Matrix. Tn a sort of "law of mass conservation" way these vermin will excrete a fair amount of toxic waste, and will remove almost as much precious Oxygen from the water as occurs during the decay of uneaten food. The more food they eat the more they grow and the more waste they produce, the more Oxygen they consume. And because they move at a snails pace, some food still remains uneaten and rots. The only way to improve the "cleaning" coverage is to have lots of them crawling over your tank, which defeats the purpose. I suppose, some species are prized for there reputed removal of algae from hardscape, but these are often huge, garish and unsightly. The better policy, naturally, is to just not get algae, which renders them redundant.

Infestation can be reduced significantly by application of Super-Mega-Ultra-Nova-High CO2 concentration levels........which.....of course, may not be a suitable option if there are fish present in the tank. And of course, this treatment may not have much of an impact on eggs, so execution of repeated carpet bombing missions via modulation of your knurled needle valve knob is necessary. Be sure to remove the debris. Many will seek refuge by escaping via the tank wall.

CO2 is the gaseous version of duct tape. It's usefulness and application are innumerable....

Feed your fish predominantly live foods, which can be done at a significantly reduced interval (owing to it's higher energy), to mitigate the increased cost, and live food will never remain uneaten.

Cheers,
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Thanks Ceg, your input is very welcome! At the minute there are no fish or shrimp in my tank. I'm currently just in the cycling period. Algae is very minimal, and limited to a slight amount of diatoms at the minute. I'm currently running 2 x 28 w T5's for 6 hrs a day, i'm injecting pressurised Co2 (drop checker is lime green through out the photo period). I'm also dosing tropica specialised at 5ml per day (i have a 125 ltr tank), i'm also dosing easy carbo at 5ml per day.

Are you saying that it would be best to try and get rid of the snails before they have chance to proliferate? If so what is the best way? Should i push Co2 injection to the limit, with a view to killing off these critters? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Lee.
 
Aren't some snails air breathers like the common pond snail and ramshorns? I think whether you should have snails or not entirely depends on the type of maintenance you want to have. In a sterile enviroment you don't even need a filter media. One does many large water changes and removes all stuff manually daily and wipes the glass religiously. If not, then snails are a friend. It's like to say we don't need worms in the ground, or insects in the fields.
 
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