MTS

[Yassmeena]

Although I hate snails that grow out of control, lately I've been thinking about getting Malaysian Trumpet Snails to stir up and clean my sand substrate.

I have never even seen them, so I have some questions about them:

1 - Are they unsightly in the tank? How visible are they? (I remember I got ugly pond snails once that I HATED and went to great lengths to kill off! eww!)

2 - How do you quarantine them, if at all?

3 - How do you control their population growth? Does it ever get out of hand?

4 - Do you regret getting them?

5 - Do they eat plants?

Thanks so much!!

Yasmin

Note: I posted this earlier in the wrong section (Heckel Project) so here it is properly placed... :o

[snoopy65]

Although I hate snails that grow out of control, lately I've been thinking about getting Malaysian Trumpet Snails to stir up and clean my sand substrate.

I have never even seen them, so I have some questions about them:

1 - Are they unsightly in the tank? How visible are they? (I remember I got ugly pond snails once that I HATED and went to great lengths to kill off! eww!)

You very rarely see them. During the day they stay in the substrate. At night they will come out and clean your glass.

2 - How do you quarantine them, if at all?

Although, I have never heard of MTS carrying anything detrimental to fish, when I first got mine, I put them in their own 5 gal tank for about 1 month. Once there for a month I transferred a few to another tank with fish and waited to see if there were problems and finally added some to my discus tank.

3 - How do you control their population growth? Does it ever get out of hand?

Overfeeding your tank and leaving the food in there will cause a population boom. Cutting back on feeding or removing left over food will reduce the problem.

4 - Do you regret getting them?

No, they do a wonderful job in the substrate.

5 - Do they eat plants?

They do not eat live plants. They will eat dieing plant matter though.
Thanks so much!!

Yasmin

Note: I posted this earlier in the wrong section (Heckel Project) so here it is properly placed... :o


Hope this helps.

[jerzguy]

Any suggestions on how many snails are required for a 125 planted tank with 11 discus?

Thanks

[darbex]

In my opinion I would stay away from MTS. From my experience they will overrun your tank and they are hard to get rid of. I try to erradicate them when I see them in my tanks and the sight of them at night is horrible they cover everything and they are not good algae eaters. If you want algae eating then I recommend Nerites and if you want a snail that stirs the bottom and eats left overs then get Assassins.

[Scribbles]

I had some MTS and never saw them during the day, only at night. The population depends on the amount of food available. Unfortunately I think that I have sucked all of mine up with the gravel vac.

Chris

[Fraise]

i used to have them in my 65G and it got to the point where i moved all of my fish to my 120g and put my turtle in the 65. i'd stay away from these snails. i tried at several points to remove the snails which included putting lettuce leaves on the bottom and removing when its covered in snails, and netting all of the ones on the glass but within a couple of days it seemed like the population was back in the thousands.

[rich815]

I've had them for some time and really like them. They really keep the substrate mixed up and prevent dead pockets. Sort of like earthworms in the soil. Some evenings right before lights out they seem to be everywhere crwaling around and over my flourite substrate, and some on the glass. Sort of cool to see how industrious they are. Though a big load of them may seem a distressing site it's no big deal. Other evenings I hardly see any. Funny that way.

If they are overloading a tank it's typically a direct result of overfeeding the fish. Same with any type of snail really. When I first got into this hobby (general fish, not discus) I had an overrun of your run-of-the-mill ramshorn snails. I was given the advice to decide how much to feed the fish each night, and then without fail, cut it in HALF. I started doing that and not only did the fish thrive anyway but the snail population shrunk considerably within only a few weeks.

The only downsides I hear are from those who for some reason do not like having them. No other downsides I know of really. Oh, other than maybe making it a little harder to get some foreground plants firmly established at first.....