malaysian trumpet snails

[cubsfan]

I have heard that it is important to keep these in a planted aquarium that uses sand as the substrate so that the sand does not get compacted. Is this true? Also, how does one control the population of these snails in the tank, aside from adding a couple of loaches? Would cory cats do a sufficient job of sifting through the sand? Thanks for any help on this question.

 

[farm41]

Not overfeeding your fish is the best way to control the snail population.

Loaches are the next best way.

I had a MTS explosion in my 75g heavily planted tank a while back (yea I know I feed my fish well), found some real nice borneo loaches at 'the wet spot' when visiting Portland. The MTS are all gone now, I'm going to move them to some of the other tanks and then when all the MTS are cleaned up, they will be traded in at the lfs.

 

[M0oN]

Even having a population spike shoudln't be much concern with these snails as they stay hidden for most of the daylight hours...in my opinion the benefits of them outweigh the drawbacks...

 

[cubsfan]

Can you usually get them at lfs? I don't know that I have ever seen them for sale before.

Also, is it possible to have loaches in the tank without the loaches completely wiping out the snail population? Thanks for the help.

 

[M0oN]

widely depends on the type of loach...you can get them at most LFS that carry plants, even Petsmart will have a few crawling around in their potted plant tank...

Just look over the substrate for a while for movement, they're small and hard to spot during daylight hours, some LFS have more dimly lit tanks for their plants with no fish in them, you can see MTS crawling around at all hours of the day in these...

The hard part is getting anyone to actually take the time to pick them out and sell them to you...

If you do get some I'd suggest keeping them in a seperate small tank of some sort with a sand substrate, add an algae waefer every week or so and aerate the water...make sure the temperature in the water doesn't go below 70 degree's F. You should have a population explosion in no time...

Be warned that soft acidic waters give these guys, like all snails, problems, if the gH is under about 5 and pH is under about 6.5 their shells will begin to melt...

 

[farm41]

I can send you some, just email your name and address.

 

[Fogelhund]

If anyone is looking to eradicate MTS, typically, Yo-Yo loaches are by far the best weapon.

 

[farm41]

I agree, had em before. You should see these borneo loaches go at them, quite agressive snail eating machines

 

[cubsfan]

farm41-

I won't be setting up the new tank until sometime this fall, but would it be alright if I dropped you an email sometime then? Thanks for the offer though, I appreciate it.

 

[farm41]

Sure, make sure you remind me what it is all about, I might forget by then. I will still have plenty of MTS, unless I rotate these loaches.