# How many Rams Horn Snails are too many?



## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

Hi,
How many Rams Horn Snails are too many?
My 72 gallon planted Discus tank has oodls of them. Is there a poind when there too many of them.

Durning the day and the lights are on, you can watch the gravel move and at nite an hour after the light are off there are hundreds of them visable.


----------



## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

Sounds good to me 

Unless there is a reason to get rid of them, I'd just leave 'em alone.


----------



## spypet (Sep 15, 2006)

Jen, I disagree. I think he should get a Loach or some snail predators compatible with your discus to keep the snails in check.
if your gravel is moving during the day, and snails are climbing the glass at night, those are probably Malaysian trumpet snails.
either way, snails crap an awful lot in your tank, so I hope your filtration is good and you vacuum your gravel occasionally.
too many snails add bioload your tank may not need, so maybe get that predator, or manually remove some from your glass at night.

IMHO, dozens of easily visible snails are fine, not hundreds...


----------



## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

Hi Jen
what you are saying is that I don't have to worry about having too many.

Thanks


----------



## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

I never worry about it - I have hundreds upon hundreds and I've kept the tanks that way for several years. Never a problem


----------



## chaznsc (May 1, 2006)

escargo this weekend? LOL


----------



## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

yuk!!
That does not sound at all aptizing.


----------



## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

I've started to get some red/gold ones popping up among my common ramshorns, I think they are so cool! The color of orange sherbert  I'm trying to selectively breed these guys, only orange ones are going in the new tank!


----------



## Naja002 (Oct 12, 2005)

The reason you have so many snails is over-feeding. I realize that Discus eat a lot and generate a lot of waste, but Your snail population is directly dependent upon their food supply.

Feed your fish less-If possible. Manually remove some, or get a predator as spypet suggests.....

Easiest solution would probably be a loach or 2.

Generally, ramshorns are a Good thing, but if you're that over-loaded with them: then You may want to thin them out some....

HTH


----------



## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

that is interesting. I wonder if it has something to do with the food you are feeding them.


----------



## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

My gold ramshorns are popping up in my 15 gallon cherry shrimp tank. I feed Hikari pellets and spirulina disks. I don't think it has much to do with the food, I bet it is just a basic genetic variation.


----------



## fresh_lynny (Mar 9, 2006)

I know I overfeed because I have a lot of hiders and nano fish I have to reach in a 90 gal. My tank is full of smail porn. Everyone humping everywhere. I try picking them out but they are all over. I have 4 kuhli loaches but they are too small to eat these things. Maybe they get the baby ones.


----------



## Steven_Chong (Sep 14, 2004)

I do not think that snails are a problem, unless you don't like them aesthetically. If you are talking about bioload, I would not say that snails *cause* a greater bioload. If you have a lot of snails, it's more the *result* of a heavy bioload-- ie, lots of leftover food for the snails. If there ain't enough food, snails can't reproduce.

When I set up my tank, I noticed I had snails so I thought "crud, I'll probably get a freaking lot of them eventually." Surprisingly, even though I see lots of eggs, my snail population is pathetically low . . . I feed only ADA fishfood (no I didn't buy it, I won a bunch as booby prizes for buying too much stuff at aquaforest while in Japan). The food floats, the fish eat all of it, and my snail population is mal-nourished.

A moderate population of snails is actually good for the tank. Substrate stirring, mild-algae eating, and moving debris are all good things for the tank.

*also, a lot of people who keep snails are always concerned that higher CO2 levels will do bad thing for the health of their snails. When i increased my CO2 as the plants matured, I noticed the snail population actually decreased, and the ones I see are almost all adults with rather pale-colored shells.


----------



## Anthony (Jan 11, 2005)

I think they do a good job of eating the dying leaves as well.


----------



## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

rlong said:


> Hi,
> How many Rams Horn Snails are too many?
> My 72 gallon planted Discus tank has oodls of them. Is there a poind when there too many of them.
> 
> Durning the day and the lights are on, you can watch the gravel move and at nite an hour after the light are off there are hundreds of them visable.


Are you sure these are rams horn snails? 
I've only seen MTS burrow.


----------



## rlong (Jul 8, 2006)

Hi,
I'm quite shure that you are right tazcrash69, they are most likely MTS.
Does that make a diferance?


----------



## crazy loaches (Sep 29, 2006)

Naja002 said:


> The reason you have so many snails is over-feeding. I realize that Discus eat a lot and generate a lot of waste, but Your snail population is directly dependent upon their food supply.


Perhaps for MTS, but I have had an exploding population of red ramshorn snails in my feeder tank and I wasnt really feeding them at all. The guppies in that tank (several dozen) rarely let any flakes drop below the top 1/4 of the tank - they are feeding machines that would probably eat to death if I over feed them. Little food hit the bottom and I assume thats why my common pond snails kinda died off. 

Then I put a single (1) large ramshorn in the tank and within a couple weeks I have babies everywhere, within a month there was probably a few dozen large ones. I presume they fed off decaying plant matter since there are lots of plants in the tank with too little light and many of them dont make it (they are surpluss plants taken out of my plant tank). I welcome the snails though since I feed em to the puffers, so to keep up with this large population I know throw a couple spriulina algae wafers in there every other day.


----------



## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

rlong said:


> Hi,
> I'm quite shure that you are right tazcrash69, they are most likely MTS.
> Does that make a diferance?


No, actually both are OK for plants, the MTS have the extra bonus that they burrow and stir the substrate. Ramshorns tend to be out and about more, so they are more unslightly, while the MTS tend to stay buried only coming out at night like C.H.U.D. :eek5:


----------



## TAF CAF (Jan 12, 2006)

tazcrash69 said:


> Ramshorns tend to be out and about more, so they are more unslightly,
> C.H.U.D. :eek5:


I don't know about yours, but my ramshorns are B-U-T-FULL! They are a pure strain of orange and I love to see them out and about.


----------



## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

TAF CAF said:


> I don't know about yours, but my ramshorns are B-U-T-FULL! They are a pure strain of orange and I love to see them out and about.


Sorry, didn't mean to insult, I have them in my low-tech, and love the job they do. Some people don't like the look, and when there are in very large numbers on the front glass I think they distract from the tank itself.


----------



## daFrimpster (Mar 7, 2005)

put a piece of blanched zucchini in there at lights out. The next moriing remove the snail covered zucchini. Do this for a few nights in a row until you get rid of as many as you want. That way you can do population control without eradication. I think for the most part that snail populations control themsoelves based on available forage.


----------



## TAF CAF (Jan 12, 2006)

No offense taken... not everyone can have as pretty snails as mine... LOL


----------



## TAF CAF (Jan 12, 2006)

daFrimpster said:


> put a piece of blanched zucchini in there at lights out. The next moriing remove the snail covered zucchini. Do this for a few nights in a row until you get rid of as many as you want. That way you can do population control without eradication. I think for the most part that snail populations control themsoelves based on available forage.


Personally I would go with a leaf or two of frozen 'chopped' spinach. Zucchini musses my water up too much.

The only problem with frozen spinach is that your fishies will love it too, and you may not have much left in the morning. (I feed it to all my fishies as a special weekly treat.) However, what you do have left will be fully covered by snails. (also, it floats for just a little while, then will sink on it's own, so you don't have to weight it down.


----------

