How Many Snails/hermit Crabs Should I Have In My Tank?

[craigybaby37]

ime just qurious as to how many snails i should have in my tank as ive read in some posts on the forum of people having like 50 snails in a 50Gallon and 30 in a 30Gallon.

it seems like people are having roughly 1 snail per gallon.......and i have got 6 turbo snails in a 20 gallon so ime guessing i should have more??? and if so what snails shoudl i try and get??

And would u say i should get any more hermit crabs aswell as i currently only have 5 in the tank??

Reason ime asking this is because i cannot believe the ammount of algea i get in the course of a week its silly.....on the back of the tank ill get the hard algea thats a nightmare to scrape off and then on top of that i gat a sheets of dark red algea that i can scrape off like peeling skin.

 

[SkiFletch]

I personally hate hermit crabs, and will never put them in my tank again. Little buggers kill each other and snails. I'm personally a fan of smaller and moderate sized snails, margarita, cerith, astrea, trochus, and nassarius. JMO though. You could stand to have some more snails it sounds like.

As for the algaes, sounds like a brown calcaerous or coraline algae, and cyanobacteria for the slimy stuff.

 

[Lynden]

I personally love hermit crabs but I'm afraid I can't recommend them for algae problems. The amount they consume compared to how much an equal sized snail does is quite minimal. Hermits are very useful to control extra food.

 

[craigybaby37]

well how many extra snails do you think i should get for my tank then???

 

[chrissaysyes]

I personally love hermit crabs but I'm afraid I can't recommend them for algae problems.

.758 snails per gallon