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What type of snails should I get?

S

Sam66

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Joined
6 Jan 2022
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51
Location
Cambridgeshire, UK
Newly set up 120l tank. Substrate is sand over dirt. The sand is a mix of play sand and much coarser sand/grit dug up from the garden. No added CO2.

I planted and filled a couple of weeks ago and want to get some snails in there but really have no clue what type to get.

Plan is to also keep cherry & Amano shrimps. Still deciding on fish but some that will leave the shrimps alone and low stocking density.

My daughter (her tank) is worried about snail population exploding and eating the plants so is keen on assassin snails. I read that trumpet snails would be good for sand substrate but I don't know anything about any other varieties.

Any advice of what we should start with and where to buy (Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire)? Local place I looked only has assassin snails @£3.50 each.
 
Ramshorn would get my vote in the early days. They are far hardier than nerites. Apple snails are illegal in many countries including the UK. Back when I kept them they’d munch on my sword plants and breed like crazy. I kept pink and purple ones and supplied my lfs and still removed huge egg clusters every few days.
 
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Ramshorns will eat damaged plant growth but won’t damage healthy plants (if I’m wrong someone will correct me.) They eat surplus food and detritus. They only become a problem if your tank is out of balance e.g. overfeeding or too much algae
 
Thanks for the Ramshorn recommendation.

At the moment I would say that there is too much algae (diatoms and BBA) but hopefully that will settle down as the tank gets established.
 
I don't know if it matters to the snails but the water here is pretty hard - typically 21 degrees Clark, Mg:3.9 Ca:113.8 CaCo3:300.4, pH:7.4
 
I have 10 Clithon Corona (bumblebee nerite) snails in my 60p and they do a great job of keeping the rocks clean.

Around a year down the line with them and not lost any yet
They are still in the nerite family but possibly a better candidate.

They stay a bit smaller than most nerite snails aswell.

They will be going in the next scape for sure
 
The only people ive found to really struggle with wildly out of control snail populations are fish breeders who also feed insane amounts of food to their tanks.
I know one whos substrate is 50% snails at this point. But this is not the norm, far from it.
Populations can only grow when there is food for them. The snails will eat the biofilm and detritus off your plant leaves, hindering algae growth before algae is visible to the human eye, and they will clean up excess fish food. They are very useful in this regard, that a large amount of snails just means you need to feed less than you currently do. Then the population will decrease and become stable again at the new level.

Since snails often come along for the ride on purchased plants, you could decide that at some point you will probably end up with several species of small snails in your tank, and that it really is quite ok when you think about it. I had to go through this same process myself.

Common small hitchhiker snails are small Planorbis sp., Physa sp. and small limpets. All three species will never eat your plants, they are just not strong enough.
Ramshorns is slightly different, some people say they eat plants, some say they dont, and others say they will only eat plants if they are absolutely starving. I dont have experience with them myself, but they come highly recommended from people on this forum.

Trumpet snails are a must have in my opinion for any tank that contains fine sand, they will stir the substrate and eat leftover food, but do not eat a lot of algae, preferring to stay mostly out of the way.

Neritina and Clithon snails are decorative snails that will not breed in your tank, but they do leave behind unsightly eggs. They are very good algae eaters.

I would avoid apple snails, they eat plants more often than not.

I wouldnt personally go for assassin snails, they will eat your free algae cleanup crew but wont eat algae themselves ;)
 
Thanks for everyone's help.

I have found someone local on eBay selling Ramshorn and MTS so following the advice received I think we will go for a mixture of those.
 
One more question.

The seller suggested 50 x MTS and 30 x Ramshorn (all young/babies). Is this too many (for 120l tank)?

Presumably if there are more than the tank will support then they will just grow more slowly, or will they start eating the plants?
 
Sam66 said:
One more question.

The seller suggested 50 x MTS and 30 x Ramshorn (all young/babies). Is this too many (for 120l tank)?

Presumably if there are more than the tank will support then they will just grow more slowly, or will they start eating the plants?
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Way to many in a new aquarium, you will have to feed them if you do. 10 RH would be good start, these will turn into 100 in short order.
 
Sam66 said:
One more question.

The seller suggested 50 x MTS and 30 x Ramshorn (all young/babies). Is this too many (for 120l tank)?

Presumably if there are more than the tank will support then they will just grow more slowly, or will they start eating the plants?
Click to expand...
You don't need more than like 5 of each, they breed really quickly. Probably why that seller is trying to offload so many to you!

Another snail I keep that's really nice and funny is the rabbit snail, it doesn't eat my plants and is very pretty with a nice face and gets quite large.
 
Hi all,
I'm <"a snail fan">, I have MTS, Ramshorn and Tadpole snails in all my tanks. If I had harder water I'd add a few more species.
Ajm200 said:
Apple snails are illegal in many countries including the UK
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Now <"legal again">.
Ajm200 said:
Ramshorns will eat damaged plant growth but won’t damage healthy plants
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Certainly what I've found.
Hufsa said:
Common small hitchhiker snails are small Planorbis sp., Physa sp. and small limpets.
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I have all of these via that route.

cheers Darrel
 
Yes, was an expensive watch as one large Ramshorn devoured two Buce Dark Theia leaves in about 30 minutes!
I moved it into a another aquarium ;)
 
Hufsa said:
While rabbit snails are very cute as Shangman says, mine eventually took to eating my plants, so they could be a bit of gamble :(
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Really? 😱 Which plant species?

Mine do decimate the dried leaf piles I add, they make a really fine mulm with it. Maybe that's why they haven't eaten my plants! Or maybe I only kept them with plants they don't like 🤔
 
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