Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hi All- I'd like to add some snails to my shrimp tanks. Are there any freshwater snails that are mainly detrius eaters? Jan

In a small tank of mine they became a bit of a problem. Because they breed so fast, they quickly outnumbered my shrimp. What it meant was that when I dropped in crab cuisine pellets, often they would just gauged on by a ton of snails before the shrimp even realised the food was there. A lot of the time the snails and shrimp are competing for the same food.

Hi janbee

I have snails in all of my Invert. tanks
I have MTS, Red Rams Horn, Common Rams Horn, Common Pond Snail.

And as jeej stated.
The snail will muscle there way onto the food, It amazing how fast a snail can move when they want to.
But I have no problem with the Shrimp getting enough food to eat.

John

In a small tank MTS are the best. I also like ref rams, but they don't stay pretty if kept with MTS. The MTS chew holes in their shells. Red rams look really good in soft water tanks.

Large tanks I use apple snails and Chinese trapdoor snails.

jeej wrote:In a small tank of mine they became a bit of a problem. Because they breed so fast, they quickly outnumbered my shrimp. What it meant was that when I dropped in crab cuisine pellets, often they would just gauged on by a ton of snails before the shrimp even realised the food was there. A lot of the time the snails and shrimp are competing for the same food.

those shrimp must be slow motion shrimp. or the snails must me some fast suckers!!

aberfitch wrote:

jeej wrote:In a small tank of mine they became a bit of a problem. Because they breed so fast, they quickly outnumbered my shrimp. What it meant was that when I dropped in crab cuisine pellets, often they would just gauged on by a ton of snails before the shrimp even realised the food was there. A lot of the time the snails and shrimp are competing for the same food.

those shrimp must be slow motion shrimp. or the snails must me some fast suckers!!

If you have that many snails it is a sign of over feeding. You should cut back on the feeding and this will help sove the overpopulation problem. I had the same problem with some MTS and when I controlled the feeding the population regressed and balanced out.

I'm giving 1 pellet a day to 5 shrimp.

This might still be too much food. Snails will breed if they have a food source. Whether the snails multiplied due to overfeeding now or in the past, it was due to overfeeding. You might want to try and remove some of the snails and see if they are still multiplying, if they are there is too much food. If the shrimp can't get to the food due to the snails try feeding some floating food that will give the shrimp the advantage over the snails

Cool, I'll bear that in mind. I've moved my shrimp into a bigger tank now anyway and there are hardly any snails (so far!).