Snails In Tank

[lissali]

Hi

I have an established tank with firemouths, 2 rainbows, a chocolate cichlid, 2 red jewels and a few more smaller cichlids. My eheim external has a lot of snails in it. They are horn shaped and brown, about 1cm at biggest and multiply really quickly. None of these are in my tank only in the cannister. Would it be beneficial to put some in the tank to turn over the sand substrate? Would they overrun the tank? Are my fish capable of eating them, I know nothing about snails. Any advice would be great. Thanks Melissa

 

[mlawson]

They are most likely to be Malaysian Trumpet snails or some other similar species.
They are normally transferred to the aquarium by plants or fish bags. They are harmless
and most will not eat plants but algae. Although they do quickly multiply and soon you could
have an infestation. To stop this you could add some snail eating fish such as some Loaches.
The Clown Loach Botia Macracanthus is probably the most efficient loach at clearing snails.
Clown Loaches can grow large upto 25cm/10" so a 4ft would be a minimum. There are other
loaches from this genus which grow to smaller sizes but are still affective at clearing a tank from snails.
The dwarf chain loach Botia Sidthimunki. These only attain 7.5cm/3" and will be happy in a 2ft tank.
Most puffers will feast on snails but generally don't do well in aquaria.

 

[lissali]

Thanks for the reply. I really don't have the room to add any more fish in the tank. I was just wondering whether I should leave well alone, or add snails to tank with the fish I already have, or even would it be advisable to remove snails the best I can from the cannister as well.


Thanks again, Melissa

 

[Castellop123]

I would remove as many snails as possible... remember that snails crawl through the substrate...