Freshwater snail questions...

[wvdeadhead]

Hey everyone, I've had a freshwater tank for years now. I've only kept fish in the tank and have had to clean the gravel on the bottom every month to two months. My Oscars and Pacus are apparently very messy. Anyway, onto the question... I'm wanting to get some snails to help with some of the mess. What type is the best to get, and how many for a 30 gal tank?

 

[marknmelissa]

Get ready for some advice you might not like. Two oscars and a pacu are way too much fish for a 30 gallon. They will get huge and make way too much mess for your average sized tank.
Hopefully you can put them in a big tank soon as they grow very fast.

As to snails, I don't know how much gravel cleaning they will do, but apple snails are pretty cool.
-Mark

 

[Menagerie]

Nothing will eat the waste produced by the fish. You need to vacuum the gravel. Many on this board recommend weekly water changes with a gravel vacuum (I change my tanks every 2-3 weeks, depending on how busy I am). Snails will eat left over food and algae.

 

[wvdeadhead]

Yeah, I know, they are all still pretty small. The Pacu... maybe 3 inches long, the Oscars... maybe 2. I know eventually I'll have to get a new tank, but for the time being I'm going to leave me setup as it is until I find a new tank that I like.

 

[wvdeadhead]

The food and algae is what I'm concerned with most. The Pacu only eats flakes or pellets of a certain color and my Oscars have a bad habit of getting a mouth full of food, then spitting it out, then trying to eat it all again. I had an algae problem a few months ago that I got under control. Come to find out, my auto-feeder was dumping too much food at a time. Got rid of it and went back to feeding by hand, no problems now. I figure though, what little algae or food is left over after feeding, the snails can take care of.