freshwater Nerite snails

[Tek]

Perhaps the corydoras are eating them (the likeliest candidate in my opinion) especially newly hatched snails. Are you seeing snail eggs in the tank? It could be that they are not breeding as profusely, but once they get established they can really explode in population density. If you pluck out the larger adults you can manage their numbers to some degree. Assasins can manage them well if you ever beign to be overun with them. Assassin snails usually eat smaller snails, thus ignoring for a large part the adults given a good amount of smaller alternatives. They breed slower usually and can be well controlled with manual removal and selling the excess.

Nope, I have never seen snail eggs, but the tank is densely planted so I cannot say for sure.

What numbers should I be looking at to begin to worry? I see one new snail a month. The tank has been occupied for 4 months now and I am up to 3 snails.

The adults should be easy to pluck out, they are so darn big, didn't know ramshorns got that big. They keep my rock clean so I am not worried about that. They are never on the glass though, isn't that odd.

Didn't know corys ate snails. Cute lil buggers.

Oh I have a pleco somewhere in the tank too. I forgot it but talking about the glass made me remember. Was thinking to myself, if the snails don't clean the glass then who the heck does? Do plecs eat snails? Mine has gone nocturnal on me. It only comes out at night. Its getting to big. Gotta get rid of it soon, but don't know how I am gonna catch it.

Got it as a inches last fall, not it is about 6inches. Got to find a new baby and give away the yearlings

[mnemenoi]

Ramshorn snails have small jelly like clusters of eggs, but lay them anywhere. With those numbers you should be golden, most concern is raised if they are very numerous (50+ and innumerable youngsters) and they begin eating vegetation due to their excessive numbers.

Cory's can eat snails, though usually the larger adult cories and recently hatched snails.

Pleco's can eat snails, though its a rarity in my opinion. There are hundreds of different varieties of Plecostomus (or loricards) and they vary quite a bit on diet and size. Yours is likely cleaning the glass as well as the snails, both prefer nocturnal activity as it reduces predators vision. The general pleco in the industry is a Hypostomus spp. and quite the tank buster at over 2 foot by adult size and generally not a very effeciant algae eater. Once you have rehomed it, I would suggest a smaller and more managable species such as a bristlenose (5" adult size) or some Otocinclus (1-2" adult size). Both can be kept as a single, but pairs, trios, or schools are even managable. They will exhibit social behavior and can be bred in some cases and the true positive is you never have to remove them from the tank as they will not outgrow it. If I had more info on your tank I could make better recommendations, but those are very good starts into more exotic plecos.

I would not worry about the snails yet, just keep an eye on their population and know that you do have resources at your disposal if they become a problem, snail away (chemical) is very bad for everything in the tank and a last resort in my opinion.

Good Luck and hope you have some luck in capturing your gentle giant

[suicune]

You said you have an angel fish, some angel tends to be a bit aggressive and is known to eat snail as snack. Some omnivorous fishes also eat baby snail when they are small enough to be swallow whole. My snail problem isnt too severe because most baby snails got eaten by my greedy swordtail, my swordtail has a troublesome personality, it ate one of my 1 month old guppy fry, uprooted one of my water wisteria, and i saw him picking on those newly hatch baby snail. Just like you, I only have 1-2 ramhorns made it to adult hood which will be food for the sin snail soon. Back to topic, if you guys have a problem with algae, any types of algae, get nerite, I got 3 nerite from Arms on july 4th, today I checked back my wall of greenspot right under the light fixture are gone, they're mowing the green spot on my big anubias now, so glad i got them

[Tek]

Wow, thanks for the wealth of info.

1. I have never seen jelly like clusters in my tank, and at a whopping three snails in three months, I am not worried yet

2. My cories are about 1.25" long. They are fat little buggers that keep dropping eggs but I think my angels and rainbows have been feasting on those.

3. As for the algae eaters, between the snails, pleco, cories and sheepshead minnows, they are keeping algae down. I was gonna get some ottos last week because they were cheap, I still might end up getting some. I don't by plecos because that would be like buying air I catch them as babies, and give them away at about 5 or 6 inches. Or put them in with my turtles. Mine are from the bayou so they are the regular common pleco. As babies they seem to do a fantastic job of cleaning. The adults eat anything but algae (even live slow moving or sick fish). I don't really need a pleco as I end up having to feed them anyway. I just have them because they are free.

4. I don't like chemicals in my tank. Don't think I would ever use snail pesticides. If biological control doesn't work, I would fall back to good old snail crushing. The calcium in the shells are good for my fish and plants.


Anyway. I asked about them because I thought the snails didn't like my tanks. With all the snail killing talk, I can see why


Edit: Solved the mystery. There is tank with aged water that I use to set up new tanks. Just flipped the lights on in there and there are about 30 little ramshorn snails in there. I guess when I pull some water from there I get a snail each time. I feel kinda sorry for these because there is no filter, no surface agitation, no food. The tank is clean of all algae. I don't want them in my other tanks, I guess I am gonna have to set the tank they are in with something else. Just in case I need these guys to feed something in the future.

[troy tucker]

Snails make great food for pufferfish. They also do a pretty good job on algae. Some people will keep rams horns as food for their fish. They breed fast. Nerites do eat algae well and need salt to breed so you don't have to worry about thim taking over the tank but they leave little white eggs every where in your tank. That is harder to clean then the algae. Mystery snails get big and eat lots of algae but some are mixed with apple snails and eat your plants too. But apple snails are the biggest snail. Getting as big as a baseball and are Prohibited in this state...
just a few things about snails...
good luck...

[Tek]

wait, mystery snails don't eat plants?

I didn't know Apple snails are prohibited. I saw them a lot in central Texas waterways. Big old apple sized snails.

I love blue mystery snails.

[troy tucker]

I have had some that don't. Apples are not Native to Texas. People let them go in the wild. That's why they are prohibited now. But you can still find them in stores.

[h2oaggie]

I have had some that don't. Apples are not Native to Texas. People let them go in the wild. That's why they are prohibited now. But you can still find them in stores.

Pomacea bridgesii is the species commonly found in aquarium stores for sale, and is not prohibited in Texas. All other apple snails however are.