Snails in planted tanks.

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kashif314

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I ve seen here pictures of tanks with plants and snails. They don't harm your plants? I want to house one or two but hesitant because I have live plants.
 
Nerites won't normally harm your plants. Pont snails can devastate your plants. Research the snails you are interested in.
 
I have pond, ramshorn, and MTS in my low tech and high tech planted tanks. Have not seen an incident of snails eating healthy plants. Unhealthy plants might be a different story.
If you just want a few, stick to nerites as mentioned above. The ones I've listed are prolific breeders.
 
I'm a crazy snail lady. One of the things I love about them is that they eat healthy parts of plants while leaving the healthy parts unscathed. I have rabbits, mysteries, trapdoor, nerites, and ramshorns. Love them all.

Exceptions: rabbits eat lotuses, mysteries eat frogbit, and guppy grass is snail salad.
 
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They eat unhealthy plants mostly. Anacharis was devoured. So far no one has touched the guppy grass. I have mystery snails and ramshorn.
 
If you ever have a population explosion... Pond snails will eat healthy plants.
I disagree....Never had pond snails eat live healthy plants. Ive had hundreds in tanks with no issues. Probably a hundred in my 10 now. Probably another 100 mts and maybe 20 rams. Rams starting to come back now. Mts are most prolific in typical systems. But easily 250 snails in my 10g.
 
I disagree....Never had pond snails eat live healthy plants. Ive had hundreds in tanks with no issues. Probably a hundred in my 10 now. Probably another 100 mts and maybe 20 rams. Rams starting to come back now. Mts are most prolific in typical systems. But easily 250 snails in my 10g.
Recently had it happen with nearly no algae. No algae equals no food. They gotta eat something... And they will.
 
Anyone can win lottery. I always come across someone who claims they ate plants. Was plant healthy? Do you know for sure IT ate plant?

Is it possible.....yes. Likely......extremely unlikely. Rogue snail....maybe. All I can say is ive kept them for about 35yrs in large numbers in many tanks and ive yet to have someone convince me they eat plants.

But we can still be buddies lol
 
Anyone can win lottery. I always come across someone who claims they ate plants. Was plant healthy? Do you know for sure IT ate plant?

Is it possible.....yes. Likely......extremely unlikely. Rogue snail....maybe. All I can say is ive kept them for about 35yrs in large numbers in many tanks and ive yet to have someone convince me they eat plants.

But we can still be buddies lol
LOL. Yeah they were healthy. But had my balance down with shrimp and ottos and then had a pond snail explosion... First day I did the cucumber trick I pulled out hundreds. And did the same every few days for a few weeks. I did say explosion...

So I might have won the lottery. Keys that I learned are to bleach every plant. And buy assassins. And kill 100 snails a week minimum. And reduce food lol.
 
Im off my soap box...im guy that tries to get along with all. Try to be polite. The neat thing is its your tank run it how ya like. Thats what we all should do.

Rock on
 
I overfed and then tried snail cold turkey and then they went after plants. If I would have managed them better I wouldn't have to stage snailocalypse.
 
I basically rented yoyo loaches from lfs to control pond snails, but the loaches chased/stressed my platys fry. Now I have an assassin snail colony!

Never caught ponds eating healthy plants, but snails grow on you. Now I have assassin, mystery, ponds, nerites, and mts. LOL

Sent from my N9130 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Should have been clearer, not all in same tank...Oops.

Sent from my N9130 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Thanks guys for the replies. I have a UV sterilizer so no algae in my tank. Do they eat fish waste also?
 
If some snails are in tank, it does not hurt. When buying plants, they come automatically. They eat waste. They also filter the water.
But it must not be too many. And there is a size that likes to plug the hose. ("Valve snails")
Apple snails need many plants. But if you have many green left, it goes.
 
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