New Aquarium Advice - FW Cleanup Crew?

[Lidralyn]

Well, not really new...but "new." I had this tank for about 6 months and my Betta ended up dying and I had a massive pond snail issue. So I decided to move my 3 neon tetra's to a smaller tank for awhile and I cleaned out the 10 gallon completely, and let it dry for a couple weeks to be sure all of the snails were dead.

Now I am starting to repopulate the 10 gallon.

I put my 3 rainbow tetra's back into the tank and am hoping to purchase 2 more today to have a total of 5. I plan on adding a Betta again as the very last fish, but before I get to the Betta I plan on adding shrimp and/or snails.

I had a mystery snail for awhile and loved the big guy, but I think after my snail explosion I am kind of leery about getting another one, I think I want to go the nerite route this time. Also perhaps 1 or 2 Malaysian trumpre snails to help get food under the substrate. I am new at this so I think I over feed some, so I need all the help I can get. Hopefully the shrimp will help a lot with that tho.

I did have some Ghost shrimp in my tank before, but my Betta was very aggresive and typically ended up eating them, which was fine, but it didn't help me keep anything clean.

I guess the question is, in this 10 gallon with a Betta and 5 Neon Tetras, what would be the best snail/shrimp numbers be to help me keep the tank clean and not over crowd? If my new Betta tends to eat the shrimp then I may have to switch to more snails, but would like suggestions for before the Betta comes, and then suggestions in case my betta eats everything.

I also plan on adding a Betta Log to the tank to float so the Betta will have another hiding place since my last one loved swimming around the plants I had before, but I like the low logs I have in this one now because it's easier to see the other fish as they swim around.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[fort384]

Shrimp and snails in a FW tank will only help minimally with clean up - you aren't going to be able to get them to keep the glass clean, etc. Regular water changes and a magnetic algae cleaner are the best methods for this.

As far as what you can put in in terms of snails and shrimp, you are right that a betta can potentially pick off most ornamental freshwater shrimp. That being said, numbers are not really all that important - most shrimp and snails only add minimally to the bioload of a tank. I have kept hundreds of FW shrimp in a 5.5 gallon tank before, with no problems.

 

[Lidralyn]

Wow hundreds? That's well more than I had planned. Also I had mostly fed tropical fish flakes to my tetra's and 2 pellets a day to my Betta and he still had issues with bloating...he was a lazy fish, but managed to eat everything in sight.

Then I would feed algae pellets to my snail and the shrimp sometimes also.

Is there a way to feed the tetra's/shirmp without the betta eating flakes as well and over eating?

 

[PockX]

Clean up crew wise you could do a few cories or some otos instead, unless you really want snails? Not sure if algae was a problem for you before or not either. I have that same decor you have on the right there too in my 29

 

[Number1cookie]

I LOVE my nerite snails . I picked up 4 of them from the lfs. They keep the glass and swords in my 37 nice and clean and I don't have to worry about baby snails!!!

 

[Fishperson]

otos don't clean the tank except for algae. cories do help though. its not like a clean up crew will have a negative bioload. they will create more waste then they clean.