Snails

[Twoapennything]

So I have 31 baby snails that I will need to either put in my tank or rehome (LFS, I think). How many snails would be the most I should put in a 40 gallon tank? They're mystery snails and are now about the size of marbles. Are snails really useful for keeping algae away? I've heard both yes and no. Anyway, any input would be appreciated.

 

[jsoong]

What kind of mystery snail??

The Japanese trapdoor snails are reputed to be good algae eaters. The apple snails not so much. <Some apples like P. canniliculata (Cannas) just eat plants ...>

The really big show snails (say base ball or apple size) have fairly heavy bioload. I prob wouldn't put more than 2 or 3 in 10 gals. Maybe twice as many for the smaller species. (golfball size).

 

[Twoapennything]

I don't know what kind of mystery snails they are. I do have a 40 gallon tank, though, not a 10. I was talking about moving them to a 40 gallon tank. I just have the babies in a 10 gallon tank. They're going to outgrow it eventually. Their parents were good-sized snails - about the size of a ping pong ball.

 

[jsoong]

I saw the 40 gal, I was just thinking 10 .... Just multiple the numbers by 4!

Applesnail.net would be the definitive site to ID the snails. However, that seems to be down for the last while. I hope it will be up soon.

Did your babies hatched from eggs, or are the snails live bearers. Color of the eggs is one of the easy way to ID apple snails. If they are livebearers, then they would be Viviparis, likely Japanese trapdoor, aka Chinese Mystery snail.