Trumpet Snails...

[fmervin]

Hello everyone,

I'm a newbie and currently own a 65 litre (approx 17 gal) tank. It is nicely planted and uses a sand substrate which is quite thick more than 2 inches. After reading [topic="131373"]this excellent article[/topic] I learned about anaerobic pockets (newbies always learn late ). However, now it's too late for me to take off the sand since it will be too much of mess and will also cause stress to the fish (I have 3 at the moment). The article also states that malaysian trumpet snails shift the sand and eat any decaying matter. This will be just perfect for me. Now I have a few questions about keeping these snails:

1. I've heard of horror stories of tanks being overrun by snails and apparently MTS can reproduce without a partner and quite quickly at that. To sort this out I decided to keep 3 zebra loaches which will eat the snail babies. However from the googling I have done, I have learned that MTS have very hard shells, so can the zebra loaches actually eat these snail babies? My tank is too small for clown loaches

2. MTS reach a maximum size of 2 cm and I think the zebra loaches can reach a maximum size of 4cm. So can the zebra loaches eat fully grown MTS? I ideally want a dozen of fully grown MTS so that they turn over the sand and avoid these anaerobic pockets.

3. I've also been thinking of keeping 3 apple snails. Will the MTS be ok with apple snails?

4. There are people on ebay who sell snails. What are your thoughts on purchasing from ebay? How are they packaged? I'm intrigued as to how snails can be shipped. Can't they die or even catch a disease in transit? This listing http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...545683&rd=1 seems to be just what I want. What are your thoughts?

5. Do snails also require climatising? Or can I just pop them into the tank as soon as I get them home?

Sorry for so many questions guys, but I have no where else to get this kind of information from

 

[poopsydrew]

The loaches wont eat the shell they will suck the snail out of it. That said you probably wont have any snails after a few days with the loaches, they are extremely good at eating snails. I purposely put 30 snails in my 55 gallon, a week later moved my yoyo loach in there (forgetting i had snails in there). Needless to say i havent seen a snail since. I dont think the apple snails will be bothered but i know they are really messy and get pretty darn big. You might want to post in the inverterbrae section, but like i said the loaches will clear your tank of the snails. Good luck,

Drew

 

[rdd1952]

I had the problem with trumpet snails taking over my tank. They literally multiply like crazy. I could take my small net and scoop up about 3 tablespoons of sand and there would be 20 or 30 small snails in it. Multiply that by about 2.5" of sand over a 30" x 12" and thats a lot of snails. I finally had to clean out the tank and change the sand to get rid of them. I don't ever want them again.

If you have live plants though, you shouldn't have to worry about the anerobic pockets. It has been over a year since I changed my sand out and replanted my tank. I rarely poke the sand to release any gasses as the plant roots will keep the sand loose.