will an apple snail wreak havoc on my partially planted 10g?

[Catalina]

Hey everyone,
It's been a while. My fish are all doing fine, thanks to the advice on this board, and I'm about to start up a secondhand 29 gal. tank that I was able to clean thanks to more advice from here as well! I cannot express how valuable this site has been to me or how much I have learned from it.

Anyway, now I have another question for all of you, although I think i might know the answer. I was on vacation for 2 weeks, and had my boyfriend buy a snail to clean up uneaten food on the bottom of my 1 gal. betta bowl while i was away. He did his job well, and picked out a very large (almost 2 inches) apple snail. But now I am wondering if possibly this might not be the best snail for this small bowl? I saw on some other site that they can get very big, and they need 10 gal. minimum. I was wondering if the snail might be possibly ADDING more to the bioload of my betta bowl (there is no filter, i do twice weekly water changes w/ a once a week gravel vac) then cleaning up? If it is okay to leave the snail in the bowl, please tell me,because that is what I will do. But I was wondering if anyone forsees any problems.

If this is not a good home for the snail, I have a 10 gal. which is partially planted with hygrophila rosanervis (I had to look this up, obviously.) I was wondering if I moved the snail to this tank, would it eat my plants? I realize the answer is probably yes, but I just thought I'd ask what people think the best course of action would be. There is lots of algae on the glass of the 10 gal. for the snail to gorge itself on (and that would make me very happy), but the plants have not grown sufficently enough for me to let a big snail start munching on them.

Thanks in advance for your advice! I'm sorry i'm not posting as much, but I have been very busy with school.

 

[TankGirl]

The snail is a curse and a blessing in the betta bowl. It indeed will consume uneaten food and such, but it is probably the equivalent of 3 or 4 bettas in terms of bioload! If you like the snail (I personally like them) then just up your water changes to every other day, and let it be. I have had apple snails denude a planted tank overnight, and others have had apple snails that did not eat plants, but I would err on the side of caution! Here is a fabulous snail site: http://applesnail.net/

 

[Catalina]

yes, i do like my snail! i didn't think i would since i am repulsed by slugs, but my snail is so cute. i named it Blondie, even though i'm not sure of its gender. it's extremely active, so do you think i could do a trial run by putting it in my 10 gal. for a few hours one night, and then checking in to see what's happening?

 

[Catalina]

also, thanks TG for the website. it's very helpful!

 

[TankGirl]

Go ahead and plop it in the 10-gal, and see how it goes. If it does munch on the plants, they will grow back if the snail is removed. They are certainly easy enough to catch and remove, unlike most fish!

 

[notmuffy]

My apple snail never ate my plants, but maybe that's because the damn crab always beat him to it.... anway....

My snail is about 2.5 inches and I can VISIBLY tell when he 'poops', so I agree with the others that you'd have to do a pretty frequent water change. But by doing these changes, there might not be anything left for the snail to eat? Just a thought.

 

[Catalina]

yes, i think i am lucky enough to have acquired the species of apple snail that doesn't eat plants! i couldn't identify what species it was from the website because all the shell shapes looked the same to me (those people who created that website take their snails uh.... very seriously). but i did a trial run by putting it in my 10 gal. with the lights off last night. I checked on it every half hour or so, and it passed RIGHT under the plants without showing any interest in eating them. It's still cruising all around the back of the tank now, even though it's daylight. I think it's thrilled to have so much space, and so much algae too! My catfish love the snail, they keep following it everywhere and sucking algae off its shell. It's really cute, and I'm glad things are working out harmoniously. If it does start to eat my plants, it will go back in the bowl, but I really hope iit doesn't because I like it in the 10!