Hucklebuck
Aquarium Advice Regular
Would you add some snails to help clean and look my tank is 29 gallon ,my son wants some snails in the tank and i'm not sure it's a good idea,so i would like some help deciding 
Question about snails
- Thread starter Hucklebuck
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
mgamer20o0
Aquarium Advice Addict
well there are so called pest snails you can get at any lfs that should be free such as pond ramshorn and MTS. there are some like nerites that wont breed in freshwater. there are also brigs / apple snails which are bigger like golf ball size that will breed in fw but lay egg sacks out of the water.
i think its a good idea no matter what kind of snails you add. they great for cleaning up extra food. with the pest snails they are great for to tell if you are over feeding or not.
i think its a good idea no matter what kind of snails you add. they great for cleaning up extra food. with the pest snails they are great for to tell if you are over feeding or not.
Hucklebuck
Aquarium Advice Regular
How do you know if they are breeding snails ,i just don't want to be over powered with them
mgamer20o0
Aquarium Advice Addict
well you can see the eggs for the pest snails. if you dont over feed you wont be over ran with them. you can crush them in the tank or pull them out to help keep them under control.
kaiofcanada
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Yea...most lfs will give your pond snails, malaysian trumpet snails, or ramshorn snails for free. Their tanks are typically infested. 
Otherwise, you could go with purchasable snails such as mystery snails which come in white (ivory), black, blue, and gold...as well as brown. These are cousins of the apple snail. They do not get as big and are far less likely to eat your plants. Apple snails get larger and can have some very lovely shell colours. Mystery snails arenot hermaphordites and thus require the opposite sex to mate. It is very difficult to distinguish the sex, so you gotta get a few of them to get lucky. They also require that you lower your water level to 4-6 inches from the top of the tank for them to lay eggs. If you do not lower the water level you never have to really worry about them reproducing. I have pictures of my white mystery snails in my photo albums. They are quite nice.
The olive nerite and zebra nerite snails are both very well adaptable to freshwater. They will lay eggs in freshwater but these are not viable so you don't have to worry about them reproducing. They are a bit harder to find in fish stores though in my experience even though they are not very expensive. You could always aksk if members here are willing to trade or sell you some of their nerite snails in the classifieds forum. I wish I have a couple of these myself.
Otherwise, you could go with purchasable snails such as mystery snails which come in white (ivory), black, blue, and gold...as well as brown. These are cousins of the apple snail. They do not get as big and are far less likely to eat your plants. Apple snails get larger and can have some very lovely shell colours. Mystery snails arenot hermaphordites and thus require the opposite sex to mate. It is very difficult to distinguish the sex, so you gotta get a few of them to get lucky. They also require that you lower your water level to 4-6 inches from the top of the tank for them to lay eggs. If you do not lower the water level you never have to really worry about them reproducing. I have pictures of my white mystery snails in my photo albums. They are quite nice.
The olive nerite and zebra nerite snails are both very well adaptable to freshwater. They will lay eggs in freshwater but these are not viable so you don't have to worry about them reproducing. They are a bit harder to find in fish stores though in my experience even though they are not very expensive. You could always aksk if members here are willing to trade or sell you some of their nerite snails in the classifieds forum. I wish I have a couple of these myself.
mgamer20o0
Aquarium Advice Addict
mystery snails are the common names for brigs. aka Pomacea bridgesii which is a apple snail. there are countless number of different colors of shells on the brigs.
this isnt true. if you want to breed them dropping the water 1-2 inch is fine.
kaiofcanada
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I do breed them. Mine are nearly the size of a golf ball. They require far more than 1-2 inches as they are actually closer to 2.5" themselves.
mgamer20o0
Aquarium Advice Addict
i must be doing something wrong since my water level is never more then 1-2 inch from the top yet i have 100s.
kaiofcanada
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Dunno if you are doing anything wrong...I guess not if you are getting eggs. My snails are full grown and the egg sacs they lay are around 3-4 inches long when they lay eggs. If I have the water higher than 4 inches from the top they don't bother. I maintain the water level around 5-6 inches below the top and they lay eggs just fine. Perhaps if your snails are smaller they need less room to lay their sacs.
I keep a couple others in my angel tank and the water level is always around 1-2 inches below max and I never see sacs in that tank. Mind you the mysteries I keep in that tank are also around 1.5-2 inches. They could barely turn around to lay the eggs in that space.
Curious what colour mystery you have...maybe we could do a swap. I could send you snails or a couple sacs if you wanted. I shipped out everything except two sacs yesterday. The last two will hatch soon. I am sure I could send you more in a week or so. I only have one other pending order. All of mine are white, but I might be interested in blue or gold if you have them.
I keep a couple others in my angel tank and the water level is always around 1-2 inches below max and I never see sacs in that tank. Mind you the mysteries I keep in that tank are also around 1.5-2 inches. They could barely turn around to lay the eggs in that space.
Curious what colour mystery you have...maybe we could do a swap. I could send you snails or a couple sacs if you wanted. I shipped out everything except two sacs yesterday. The last two will hatch soon. I am sure I could send you more in a week or so. I only have one other pending order. All of mine are white, but I might be interested in blue or gold if you have them.
If your son is wanting just one snail go get a mystery snail. If you want a good indicator if your tank is healthy go with MTS. MTS overpopulate if over fed, try to escape or be out during the day if there is a problem like to much ammonia, they keep the sand or substrate from getting aerobic pockets, and the only draw back is they are live bearers so it is harder to control the population. If you want a snail that isn't to bad to have a round get and will breed yet control the population by destroying eggs get a ramshorn snail. I really don't recommend nerites since they will lay eggs on the glass and they are hard to get off.
jsoong
Aquarium Advice Addict
But nerites are the best for eating algae, esp. in a planted tank.
If you get a single apple snail, you won't have to worry about babies. <You need a male & a female, although the female can store sperms, so you might get a few clutched of eggs at first.>
If you have live plants, make sure the apple is a Brig (bridgesii). Some apple snails (eg canas) will demolish a planted tank overnight. <They are consider invasive pests in the wild.> There are at least 1/2 dozen species of apple snails on the market, only some are brigs. <The lfs call them mystery snail, cause it is a mystery to them what species they are!!>
Check out applesnail.net for specie ID & more info.
