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amyb_70
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Thank You, Fishfur!!! i feel much better about this...
Snails????
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No lol my pond snail has been my gest for over a year lol he came in on a plant I think. I think they are the white spotted rabbit snail and just looked up the bladder snails an I think that could be the 1s I didn't know what they where. I ant ever had a problem with them, but do Common pleco eat them?
Fishfur
Aquarium Advice Addict
Plecs do not eat snails so far as I am aware. Bladder snails are usually a darn nuisance, though they are as efficient as any at keeping glass clean and eating detritus, they usually reproduce in such numbers that people get fed up with the little dark dots everywhere they look. But most snails have a use of some sort.
Interesting you have the white spotted Sulawesi. I haven't seen any I could get, as yet. I've had Poso Rabbits, and while I find them interesting and amusing to watch, they did so much damage to the tank I had them in I sold them. They chewed nearly every leaf off my American Swords and because of their habit of digging into substrate and humping around under there, they pushed every rooted plant up and out 'til it was floating.
One day if I have space I'll get them a tank of their own, because they're very entertaining creatures. Meantime I have two species of Faunus, Devil and one unknown bicolour, looking rather similar to the Rabbits, but they don't dig and don't eat plants at all. Handy.
Also brackish water so unless I get them a salt tank I won't have babies from them at all, which is unfortunate. They actually have to live in salt water to breed and have babies, but they're live, like Rabbit and most of the Tylo' species snails are. Huge too, over 3 inches long, coppery gleam to the brown on their shells.
Interesting you have the white spotted Sulawesi. I haven't seen any I could get, as yet. I've had Poso Rabbits, and while I find them interesting and amusing to watch, they did so much damage to the tank I had them in I sold them. They chewed nearly every leaf off my American Swords and because of their habit of digging into substrate and humping around under there, they pushed every rooted plant up and out 'til it was floating.
One day if I have space I'll get them a tank of their own, because they're very entertaining creatures. Meantime I have two species of Faunus, Devil and one unknown bicolour, looking rather similar to the Rabbits, but they don't dig and don't eat plants at all. Handy.
Also brackish water so unless I get them a salt tank I won't have babies from them at all, which is unfortunate. They actually have to live in salt water to breed and have babies, but they're live, like Rabbit and most of the Tylo' species snails are. Huge too, over 3 inches long, coppery gleam to the brown on their shells.
Fishobsessed7
Aquarium Advice Addict
Do MTS do okay in planted tanks?
Fishobsessed7
Fishobsessed7
Fresh2o
Aquarium Advice Addict
IME yes. The worst thing they've done is help uproot some newly planted very small plants since they like to tunnel.
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Fishfur
Aquarium Advice Addict
Sure they do. They do not eat plants at all, and are too small to do very much plant moving with the rummaging around they do in the substrate. Many think they perform a valuable service by aerating and disturbing the substrate to some degree as they search for food, and I'm among them.
They are also eager algae eaters, at least of some of the softer types of algae anyway. I grow surface algae on rocks for my Otos, and the MTS are always first to find a new rock I've dropped in for the Otos. Sometimes the Otos don't get much of it, 'cause the MTS eat it first.
It's true they can push out a new cutting or something with very few roots, but one thing you can do about that is harvest the full sized ones when you see them. Larger ones are more able to move things than the little ones are.
There are at least a few species of MTS, btw. I found one that was a totally different colour and I separated the ones I found. I discovered this species grows more than double the size of the most common smaller ones.
I'm raising them in another tank where there aren't any cuttings for them to bother. I find it's usually only rootless cuttings that get moved and sometimes I'll cut a plant weight into skinny strips with scissors, 2 or 3 of them, much thinner than the regular ones. I'll cut them in half, and fasten it as loosely as possible around the last pair of leaves on a cutting. Pretty much keeps it in the substrate while it grows some roots, though it's a nuisance to do for more than one or two, I must admit. Mostly I let them root floating and then plant them once they have enough roots to stay down. I have a huge population of MTS in my most heavily planted tank and nothing is floating in there except things I want to float.
They are also eager algae eaters, at least of some of the softer types of algae anyway. I grow surface algae on rocks for my Otos, and the MTS are always first to find a new rock I've dropped in for the Otos. Sometimes the Otos don't get much of it, 'cause the MTS eat it first.
It's true they can push out a new cutting or something with very few roots, but one thing you can do about that is harvest the full sized ones when you see them. Larger ones are more able to move things than the little ones are.
There are at least a few species of MTS, btw. I found one that was a totally different colour and I separated the ones I found. I discovered this species grows more than double the size of the most common smaller ones.
I'm raising them in another tank where there aren't any cuttings for them to bother. I find it's usually only rootless cuttings that get moved and sometimes I'll cut a plant weight into skinny strips with scissors, 2 or 3 of them, much thinner than the regular ones. I'll cut them in half, and fasten it as loosely as possible around the last pair of leaves on a cutting. Pretty much keeps it in the substrate while it grows some roots, though it's a nuisance to do for more than one or two, I must admit. Mostly I let them root floating and then plant them once they have enough roots to stay down. I have a huge population of MTS in my most heavily planted tank and nothing is floating in there except things I want to float.
fish wrangler
Aquarium Advice Addict
Will mystery snails be fine in a planted tank?
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Fishobsessed7
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ok thanks fishfur and fresh
Fishobsessed7
Fishobsessed7
Fishfur
Aquarium Advice Addict
I've kept them in planted tanks and they've been no problem. You must be aware that they have sexes, and females will sometimes lay eggs. They lay above water, a pale pinky or beige clutch, can vary from a half inch to two inches long, half inch wide or so. If you don't want babies, you can drown the clutch and then toss it, or crush it and toss it. It will be kind of gooey inside if you crush it.
If there is no bare glass above the water for them to lay on, and no cover on the tank, they have been known to crawl out seeking a place to lay and they can fall. The fall may damage them, and if you don't find them soon enough they may dry out. Either can be fatal. If there is a cover, they'll lay on the underside of it. Residue from the eggs is not that hard to remove, usually a damp rag will do. Might need to scrape very dry residue if you leave it for awhile.
So long as they are not starving, they don't eat plants. And when they do nibble, it is almost always on something floating. Salvinia & duckweed, frogbit, are the kind of thing they might eat fresh. But they won't eat much.. I have dozens of them in one tank, where I raise them, and maybe one frogbit leaf out of fifty gets nibbled now and then. They prefer salvinia over anything else and even that, one leaf now and then.
So long as they have food, [and they will eat leftover fish food, algae tabs or pellets, dead fish or shrimp or other snails, dead plant matter, even some fresh veggies ] then they are fine. They keep glass clean, and will clean off plant leaves too. They will crawl over plants and it may look like they are eating them but in fact they're eating the biofilm or algae off the leaf just as they eat it off glass.
If there is no bare glass above the water for them to lay on, and no cover on the tank, they have been known to crawl out seeking a place to lay and they can fall. The fall may damage them, and if you don't find them soon enough they may dry out. Either can be fatal. If there is a cover, they'll lay on the underside of it. Residue from the eggs is not that hard to remove, usually a damp rag will do. Might need to scrape very dry residue if you leave it for awhile.
So long as they are not starving, they don't eat plants. And when they do nibble, it is almost always on something floating. Salvinia & duckweed, frogbit, are the kind of thing they might eat fresh. But they won't eat much.. I have dozens of them in one tank, where I raise them, and maybe one frogbit leaf out of fifty gets nibbled now and then. They prefer salvinia over anything else and even that, one leaf now and then.
So long as they have food, [and they will eat leftover fish food, algae tabs or pellets, dead fish or shrimp or other snails, dead plant matter, even some fresh veggies ] then they are fine. They keep glass clean, and will clean off plant leaves too. They will crawl over plants and it may look like they are eating them but in fact they're eating the biofilm or algae off the leaf just as they eat it off glass.
fish wrangler
Aquarium Advice Addict
Can the eggs hatch in freshwater and will the fish eat the eggs?
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ye the do up root the plans but not as bad as my pleco do I tend to get a rock and dill holes in them to put plants in as wait's. That seems to help as for eating the plants they ant that bad put 10 plants in 3 weeks ago and they ant touched them yet. but saying that my sump tank where my turtles are is full of snails they do really well at cleaning up after the turtles.
Fishfur
Aquarium Advice Addict
No. Because they are laid above water, they're not available to fish to eat. When they hatch baby snails fall into the water. Some of the egg casing falls in with the little snails and I've noticed it does disappear after a while. I think either the snails eat it or the shrimp do.
fish wrangler
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ok thanks, my clean up crew of 6 oto's and 10 ghost shrimp will have some live food. If they start to become anoying I will scrape any new eggs to keep population controlled.
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Fishfur
Aquarium Advice Addict
Newborn mystery snails are very, very tiny, so you may not notice them in the tank right away. Because they have to breathe air, I've noticed mine tend to stick to the floating plants, where air is close by.
You may notice the egg clutch has broken or looks a bit crumbled. If you want some of them to survive and you see that a clutch is beginning to break up, you can gently break it all up in the water, releasing the little guys still inside it. The egg case bits will sink to the bottom after awhile, or you can net them out after a bit, once the snails have all left.
They grow reasonably fast, the ones I have that are about five months old are nearing nickel size now. Usually not too hard to sell to other hobbyists and many lfs will take them for trade or credit too, especially if they are nice coloured ones.
You may notice the egg clutch has broken or looks a bit crumbled. If you want some of them to survive and you see that a clutch is beginning to break up, you can gently break it all up in the water, releasing the little guys still inside it. The egg case bits will sink to the bottom after awhile, or you can net them out after a bit, once the snails have all left.
They grow reasonably fast, the ones I have that are about five months old are nearing nickel size now. Usually not too hard to sell to other hobbyists and many lfs will take them for trade or credit too, especially if they are nice coloured ones.
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