To get a snail or not?

[missmonday]

So I'm still a little unsure about if/when I want to add a single snail to my 28 gallon community tank or not. I was most interested in a zebra nerite snail, but they seem difficult to sex and I don't want a female laying eggs everywhere...

Do mystery snails breed by themselves? Not particularly interested in hermaphroditic snails because I don't want any more than one :'I

I wouldn't call it a "snail problem" but I have a few pest snails that hitchhiked from plants I got at the lfs, but I've been trying to kill them when I can. What about an assassin snail? Can they also eat fish food if there aren't any remaining pest snails? I've heard they've been known to attack shrimp which makes me less interested :c

More or less my specifications are:
Doesn't eat plants
Doesn't lay eggs/reproduce by itself
Doesn't eat/attack amano shrimp

This might be a fruitless search, but thanks for your input anyway!

 

[SpaceFish42]

From my experience, nerites don't eat plants, can't reproduce without brackish water, and basically ignore everything else living in the tank. I would definitely recommend getting at least one of them.

 

[Hunter73]

From my experience, nerites don't eat plants, can't reproduce without brackish water, and basically ignore everything else living in the tank. I would definitely recommend getting at least one of them.

Ditto.


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[missmonday]

Would a single nerite not lay too many eggs? I tried to look for pictures online, but I can't tell if people just left the eggs, or had tons of snails.

 

[brennae]

I find the eggs hard to remove from my 55 because it's on a tall stand and I have to get the ladder out. The eggs really kind of annoy me but I'm not getting the ladder out daily. Mystery snails need a male/female but I can't remember if the females store for later egg laying. Applesnail.net is a good source of info. With the mystery snails if they lay eggs it's above the water line and you just take them off the glass.

I tried to post a pic of the eggs for you but AA still won't load my pics.

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[evil Nick]

i have one nerite and one mystery, you will barely notice eggs honestly.

 

[brennae]

I'll take some pics for you later today. You will have to decide for yourself. I found a pic of my mystery snail laying her eggs. They come off the glass really easy. In another tank I have a very large mystery and the nerite snail was riding along on him for awhile and actually laid eggs in the mysery snail's shell. Lol

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[brennae]

I'll take some pics for you later today. You will have to decide for yourself. I found a pic of my mystery snail laying her eggs. They come off the glass really easy. In another tank I have a very large mystery and the nerite snail was riding along on him for awhile and actually laid eggs on the mysery snail's shell. Lol

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[brennae]

Ok I quoted myself today for no reason, sorry. Took some pics of the nerite snail eggs I find so annyoing.

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[missmonday]

Yeah, the snail eggs are unsettling

I'll have to do a little more research, but I think the only snail I'm interested in getting at this point is an assassin snail! I got a few unwanted hitchhikers when I purchased new plants, but I don't have a serious algae problem, so unwanted snails are more of an issue than algae.

I hope assassins don't lay eggs all over the place! (Even though I still only want one)

 

[Mar23]

From my experience, nerites don't eat plants, can't reproduce without brackish water, and basically ignore everything else living in the tank. I would definitely recommend getting at least one of them.

I have 2 nerite snails and one thing that surprised me and made me regret their purchase is the poop. They are poop machines and are messing up the tank with their feces everywhere.


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[missmonday]

I've heard that from nerites too...I imagine bioload varies from species to species??

 

[brennae]

They all poop alot. I've not had a problem with assassin snails. They have reproduced in my tank and I don't see the eggs. I first got them as hitch hikers actually and just purchased another bigger one. I have a terrible pond snail issue. They are pretty imo. Yes I know over feeding causes snail outbreaks, I wasn't the one doing the feeding for 6 weeks over summer so all heck broke loose!

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[missmonday]

I've heard that assassins will also eat some sinking wafers/pellets if there's no live food around?? :0 I hope this is true haha

 

[brennae]

I really dont know but some one had an assassin snail breeding thread just recently and also had them for sale on the classifieds section. Maybe pm them?

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