Are Snails Good Addition For Planted Tank?

[amagphoto]

Thinking of adding a few apple snails or looking for suggestions for snails in a 55 gal planted tank. Are Apple Snails good for a planted tank? If not, what would you suggest?

 

[GoldLenny]

Depends on the species. Some will only eat dead plant matter. Others will eat live plants. Here is a good profile. http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile92.html

What kind of fish do you have? Many people are using Amano Shrimp and Cherry Shrimp as clean up crews in planted tanks but it depends on the fish as some will eat the shrimp.

 

[nry]

Nerite snails are an alternative, though some report issues with them laying rock-hard eggs which don't hatch in freshwater and don't come off things easily!

So far mine have never laid eggs, maybe because I don't have more than one of any type/species of Nerite.

Excellent glass/rock algae cleaners and they have never touched my plants in 6 months, plus they don't get anywhere near as big as some apple snails do, mine are around 1" max.

 

[sandfire]

Nerite snails are an alternative, though some report issues with them laying rock-hard eggs which don't hatch in freshwater and don't come off things easily!

So far mine have never laid eggs, maybe because I don't have more than one of any type/species of Nerite.

Excellent glass/rock algae cleaners and they have never touched my plants in 6 months, plus they don't get anywhere near as big as some apple snails do, mine are around 1" max.

I have 1 Nerite in my tank, all it seems to do is lay white eggs all over everything! Luckily when it lays them on the tank glass my plec's seem to have a taste for them. But its very unsightly when they don't get them or can't keep up with them being laid and difficult to scrape of manually.

I had Ramshorn snails and they never touched live plants and were good at munching the decaying stuff. Unfortuneatly my Pristolepis sp seem to adore munching them, the only place they live is in the filter chambers and the second they make it in the main tank they get eaten.

 

[Themuleous]

The nerites snails are either male or female unlike normal snails. If your is laying eggs its a female (obviously!) ain't much you can do about it, as there is no real way of telling the two sexes apart.

Sam