Do you have snails in your tanks?

[CACAdmin]

Do you have snails in your tanks? Pets, pests, or both?

I have Diffusa (fomerly P. Bridgesii), Marisa cornuarietis (Giant Columbian Ramshorns), Planorbid (Red Ramshorns), Melanoides tuberculata (MTS), and the a couple of Physa (pond snails).

What do you have in your tanks?

[fishclubgirl]

I have assassins and have stolen some pest snails from my bf to feed them.Not sure what kind of pests they are, but the assassins like them. I do get some button snails in my tanks too. Also have apple snails in some of my fry and shrimp tanks. I am not overrun by snails but do enjoy squishing buttons!! (like bubblewrap!!). My main complaint would be all the empty shells in the assassin tank. The shells are just the right weight that they're really hard to vacumm up!! Any suggestions?? I do pick them out but it's time consuming.

[CACAdmin]

No suggestions but think of them as adding to the tankdecor (if you get enough you could have a shell substrate :wink: )and they do add calcium to the tank to aid the shells of the assassins.

[Pamelajo]

Canas, diffusa, spixi, assassin, mts, and pond.

[gnome]

I have Giant Columbian Ramshorn(thanks Jay), MTS, a mix of Nerites, Japanese Trapdoor and a number of nicely colored diffusa. I have one minature ivory diffusa which not quite as big as penny it been that size for months!
Pests- black ramshorn got out of control so i an trying to eradicate them. I use $store BBQ tongs and put a small container in the tank and put all the snails i grab in the container, actually I use mussel shells then just tong out the container of captives. I,m getting quite quick and efficiant with the tongs now!!

[CACAdmin]

Now that's the creative approach to dealing with pest snails (using tongs). Sounds like you've got it dwon to an art.

[gnome]

I find the bbq tongs very usefull. With 2 sets of tongs you can you can plant plants and never get your hands wet. It's kinda like learning to use chopsticks.

[Ursus sapien]

physa (button or pocket snails, with thread-like antenna); radix sp. (pond snails, big and small, with fleshy, triangular antenna); helena (assassin or wolf snail); Viviparus sp (mud snails, a trap door type, live bearing about the size of a golf ball); M. tuberculata (mts) and, of course, ramshorn.
Next stop, Sulawesi!
this link is a good start:
http://www.applesnail.net/content/snails_various.php

[Ruadh]

I'd like to have some snails in my 175, but because of the co2, their shells, rams horns, go soft and they die out.
Wish they'd die out in my shrimp tank. I think I've pretty much got the rams horns done by breaking them with a set of forseps, but I can't get the pond snails till they get bigger and then they've breed ( is that the past tense of breed?) already.

Apple snails would likly do the same wouldn't they?

Rick

[fishclubgirl]

How about them apples??? I like mine because they haven't gifted me with more(as of yet) Thanks to my able feline assistant Maddie, I also have had snails on the carpet too. Luckily, they survived!!

[CACAdmin]

Rick, the soft shells can be caused by a number of things. The snails use calcium to build them both from a dioet of high calcium foods and calcium in the water column. (I add Kent's liquid calcium to the water every water change.) I have an easier time of keeping quality shells on applesnails than on ramshorns. I may be totally off the wall, but I think it may be due to the fact that ramshorns breed like rabbits and so there are a much greater number of them competing for calcium.

I can't recall what your water is like there.

A low pH can also weaken the shell. It should be above 7.2 to maintain good shell quality. The KH and GH have an impact as well. With our soft water here I use tufa and texas holey rock in the tank and also oyster shell to buffer the water as well. You can crushed coral or oyster shell to your filter.

I'll have to go look up the recommended KH and GH levels for you.

[Ruadh]

ThankxJay

Hope I'm not jacking your thread here.
Guess you can move it to a new thread though huh?

I've got a well planted tank with co2 over 30 ppm.
The pH in the tap water is 7.8 or so and this drops to 6.8-6.6 with the co2.
I tried for a long time, 6-8 months, to add calcium via tums but it never made a noticable difference. I'd add, over the course of a week, a dozen tabs. It would bring my Cal up to about 30 ppm.

I've been told by some plant guys that it's quite common with co2 to loose all the snails over time due to the carbonic acid in the water from the calcium.

Opinions?

Rick

[fishclubgirl]

Rick,
I run CO2 in most of my planted tanks but still have snails that do okay. Granted our water is harder here, I think(techno idiot here). I don't think there's a noticeable difference in the ph with the CO2 but I don't check it and have no idea about any KH or anything like that. My thought is to get the livestock and fish to suit the water. My one snail breeding tank has CO2 but all the little guys seem to have good shells. Not sure if this helps as I'm not a plant "guy", lol!!

[Pamelajo]

Some tanks I have crushed coral mixed in with the gravel, other tanks I use oyster shell in the filters and texas holy rock. The one with the oyster shell and texas holy rock contains my oldest snails, these guys are getting up near two years of age they were already big when I got them and I have had them over 1.5 years and have not lost any.
Jay I have the gh/kh
Ph: 7.2 - 8.4
dGH 7 - 9
dKH 4.5 or higher

[CACAdmin]

Thanks, Pam. I haven't checked my parameters in ages andwould have had to hunt them down (this old brain just doesn't remember specific details... I must be getting old.:Eek: )

[Pamelajo]

I had to check to , but knew exactly were the info was, on my care sheets.:laugh:

[CACAdmin]

Thanks for making me feel better, Pam. You could have left me thinking you knew all that stuff right off the top of your head. :twitcy: