# Snails: Do they dirty or clean tanks?



## ChadEmrick (Jun 21, 2008)

I have been interested in getting some snails for awhile. I find them to be very interesting. I know some kinds of snails eat algae, and other kinds eat detritus. I would be interested in a kind that eats algae. Would they do more damage than harm with the amount of waste they put out versus the amount of algae they consume? I have heard that this sometimes can be so. I am going to have shrimp eventually. Will they clean up the snails detritus? What kinds of snails would be good algae eaters, but not tank dirtiers?

Thanks!


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## kittytango (May 7, 2008)

The Answer is.........Both!

They Clean tanks by eating left overs and dead and dying plant matter and algae depending on the snail, but they do poop a lot so they also dirty tanks. But if you have a heavily planted tank it will just be more fertilizer!

nerites are the best at eating algae.


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## Ryzilla (Oct 29, 2005)

ChadEmrick said:


> I have been interested in getting some snails for awhile. I find them to be very interesting. I know some kinds of snails eat algae, and other kinds eat detritus. I would be interested in a kind that eats algae. Would they do more damage than harm with the amount of waste they put out versus the amount of algae they consume? I have heard that this sometimes can be so. I am going to have shrimp eventually. Will they clean up the snails detritus? What kinds of snails would be good algae eaters, but not tank dirtiers?
> 
> Thanks!


IMHO all types of plant friendly snails are good. I currently have Melenoides Granifera, mini ramshorns (red, and a pearl color), olive nerites, and limpets. I believe that there is only a certain amount of bacteria that can consume the dacaying matter(detritus), but there are other organsims in your tank that aids in that proccess. Some other creatures are worms; segmented and flat, there are mites(brownish in color and about 2mm), and other larger microbes that are not visible. 

I would not worry about snails or shrimp cleaning up after each other. It is the smaller things that do most of the work. Just make sure you have enough plants to aid in consuming the biproduct of the microorganisms.


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## honor (Apr 8, 2008)

damn snails.


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## dthb4438 (Nov 12, 2007)

honor said:


> damn snails.


* X 2 !!!*


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## vance71975 (Jun 4, 2008)

Agree with above they do both BUT their is a way to balance this out. Depend on size of the tank. For example start with 10 Rams horn for algae and 25 Malaysian Trumpet for Detritus control. What this does is Eliminate the waste Produced by the Rams Horn and Put it in a more Favorable Location Under the substrate IE the waste from the Malaysian Trumpet. But your still Adding to the Bioload of the tank ANY time you put anything Alive in the tank. IE Snails,Shrimp Fish etc.


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## TJT (Jun 8, 2008)

i just found my first snails in my tank that must have hyjacked there way in via my plants. Im curious to see how big they get and how quickly they become a problem


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## thefishmanlives (May 20, 2008)

I have snails that come in on plants. I add a clown loach to the beginning of every setup, even though it will eventually outgrow the tank. What it does do is eradicate any snail issues regardless of how bad it is. It will eliminate all snails within the first month its in the tank. Any that have grew too big to be eaten, or that are missed by the loached, i crush by hand as I see them or remove them maunally and flush them. If I want snails in my tank, Id use olive nerites as they wont reproduce and cause an infestation problem in my tank and also eat some algae.


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## rain- (Mar 29, 2004)

If you compare a tank with fish only and the same tank with fish and snails, there's no difference in the waste produced if you don't feed them more when you have added snails. All the waste is coming from the food you add to the tank and the plants that are dying. 

Of course there's slightly more bioload if you let the snail population boom, but if you don't feed any extra and are keeping the plants healthy and removing dying plants, the snail population wont go out of control and thus wont add much to the bioload.


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## Hawkeye (Mar 22, 2005)

I like snails in plant tanks. That said, I agree with rain. You will have more wast from over feeding then snail poo. To keep them under control I like a yo-yo loach or smaller loach like the zebra.


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## scilence (Mar 13, 2007)

i find them to be more beneficial than harmful


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

If you don't like snails (like me!), just buy some clown loaches.

I reluctantly bought 3 clown loaches (2 x ~3", 1 x ~2"), as I have 150-200+ cherry shrimp in there and I was worried about them snacking on them and eating the MTS's at all.

Well, it's only been a couple weeks and I have not seen ONE MTS or pond snail for a while now. They were starting to get a prety good foothold previously.

Some people claim that clown loaches don't eat MTS, well...this just in! They do.

And, yes, snails produce waste. I had quite a bit of muck at the bottom and sides, which I'm sure was contributing to the BBA outbreak.


-Ryan


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## Soujirou (Jun 16, 2008)

So your loaches never attacked the shrimp?


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## redfalconf35 (Feb 24, 2008)

I accidentally "cleaned" one of my tanks with a dirty algae scraper, leaving a nice green film all across the top 1/4 of my tank. A week later, my snail population exploded and cleaned that algae film right off, so i'm a little less angry at snails as i was a month ago


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## vance71975 (Jun 4, 2008)

ringram said:


> If you don't like snails (like me!), just buy some clown loaches.
> 
> I reluctantly bought 3 clown loaches (2 x ~3", 1 x ~2"), as I have 150-200+ cherry shrimp in there and I was worried about them snacking on them and eating the MTS's at all.
> 
> ...


My loaches were lazy/spoiled they would only eat snails if i crushed them first!


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