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Trumpet Snails in Shrimp Tank ... Good or Bad?


Trotwood

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I'm not a fan of them, but i know many that are.  Because they spend most of their time in the soil they do move it around and that can be both good and bad.

 

I dont like them because they do multiply pretty quickly when food is readily available and really hard to get rid of them once the population spikes.

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These snails are like "Canaries" in the Coalmine. They will help gauge your calcium levels, clean up any uneaten foods, move the substraight around, and they sell well here in my Aqua club. I like em''

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Do they tend to stay in the substrate or are they "out and about "?

I see maybe 5 - 10 out during the day at most, they usually hide the substrate until after dark then I see a few more.

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I use them. They help breakdown waste. Create poop that microbes eat which the shrimp babies eat. Also help move the substrate, stagnant areas reduces unsightly Cyanobacteria that tends to grow where area are untouched. The adults are a good source of protein if you Crush them with forceps. More leverage if you use the base of the forceps as opposed to the tip used to arrange plants with. Also if see a bunch huddling over food you can crush one and they'll scatter and hide. If you kill one I think it release stress pheromones that they don't like. Like Roaches running from light.

Never had issues with over population. Tends to happen more in fish tanks where temps are in the 80s. Speeds up metabolism growth and reproduction.

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These snails are like "Canaries" in the Coalmine. They will help gauge your calcium levels, clean up any uneaten foods, move the substraight around, and they sell well here in my Aqua club. I like em''

I like this analogy. They're great as long as you don't overfeed and if you see them trying to get out of tank you know your water quality is bad. They are slow enough that you can pick them out when they try to eat your shrimp's expensive food. Over at TPT they often have RAOKs for them just pay shipping and you can have as many as you want.

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I hated them in my shrimps tanks.

I started with one trumpeted snail as a hitchhiker and really liked it in the beginning. Then it started to reproduce and the snails quickly became a pest. The young were easily contaminating the tanks because they swim at the surface and attach to everything, such as hands and water change equipment. The snails grew really big and were muscling out my shrimps from the shrimp food.I estimate that more than half of the shrimp food was actually eaten by the snails.

The snails good more mixing the substrate but because of the food competition I decided to get rid of them, which was very hard. I manually collected the snails over a few weeks and also used assassin snails as helpers (see video).

The shrimps are Caridina sulawesi culls. They eat the remains of the snails in the end.

 

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I hated them in my shrimps tanks.

I started with one trumpeted snail as a hitchhiker and really liked it in the beginning. Then it started to reproduce and the snails quickly became a pest. The young were easily contaminating the tanks because they swim at the surface and attach to everything, such as hands and water change equipment. The snails grew really big and were muscling out my shrimps from the shrimp food.I estimate that more than half of the shrimp food was actually eaten by the snails.

The snails good more mixing the substrate but because of the food competition I decided to get rid of them, which was very hard. I manually collected the snails over a few weeks and also used assassin snails as helpers (see video).

The shrimps are Caridina sulawesi culls. They eat the remains of the snails in the end.

 

 

Certainly, folks are welcome to their preferences, but I see these kinds of comments online and they confuse me. Generally, the snails overpopulate because of overfeeding or improper feeding.  At this point the snails are helping with tank management.  When the snails can manage to cover up the food and crowd out the most favored tank inhabitant, scoop out the snails with one swish of a net.  Do this for another day or two, and go on about your normal business until you need to take another swish of the net. 

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