Snails... a problem?>

[BLASK]

So with my plant assortment came some tiny snails.

I take them out everytime I see them, but it seems they just keep coming back.

The tank is planted ofcourse, I see the snails eat algae off the glass, but I had someone tell me they will breed out of control to a point they are a nuisance. Is this correct? I have seen anti-snail liquid on bigalsonline.com that is supposed to kill them. Ideas anyone?

I have 3 ghost shrimp and 3 otos, the tank is a 20gal and I have some golden rams on the way. Anything else I can throw in there that might eat these snails? Ofcourse I want to make sure the rams wont attack those fish.

Thank you!

 

[kenneth_kpe]

im thinking about the rams attacking the shrimps but tell me how it goes i want to add my rams to my normal think which has lots of shrimps

anyway the snails that are bad are those that devour plants, i have countless snails in my tank and my plants dont seem to have any holes in em, i make sure i dont overfeed the tank so that snails would have little access to the food thus keeping the population in control

adding a snail killer might kill your shrimps too , read into this especially if the snailcide is copper based

and its always better to control rather then eradicate using chemicals

 

[houndour]

I have 3 botia striata in my 20 gallon that control my snail population. The only snails I ever see are the ones that are too big for them to eat.

 

[George Farmer]

I agree with Ken. Snail treatments will kill your shrimp.

Rams should be fine with shrimp. Mine were no problem, even my Discus doesn't touch them.

As Houndour says - Botia species are ideal, and the striata don't grow too large like the Clown loach. Keep them hungry though because they'll choose dry foods over snails.

 

[kenneth_kpe]

[thread hijack]hmm how about tiny ghost shrimps ? they could become ram food ? or im just paranoid ..... dont want any baby shrimps to accidentally become fish food ! hehe[/thread hijack]

 

[superjalami30]

On topic, but off topicm is the botia striata commonly known as the yoyo loach or is that a different loach?

 

[pebbles]

botia striata is the zebra loach , but botia lohachata the yoyo loach is very effective at keeping tanks snail free .I havnt seen a snail since I had mine , keep in a group of three minimum though .

 

[houndour]

botia striata is the zebra loach , but botia lohachata the yoyo loach is very effective at keeping tanks snail free .I havnt seen a snail since I had mine , keep in a group of three minimum though .

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I'm sure theres a guy on here somewhere that says yoyo loaches grow 8 inches or something. I could just be making that up of course...

I think botia striata and botia histronica (golden zebra loach) are the smaller of the loaches that are more commonly available. There is a smaller loach...forget the name...but i think it's endangered or something and really rare to find.