I finally got our tropical tank running and put some stock in it today. more to come on wednesday! but i have found some small snails crawling around the tank i have no idea what kind they are, or how they got in there, should they be in there????

if you didn't put them in there...they're probably a pest. I fight snails with loaches (like striata loaches or dwarf chain loaches), but that's because I have plants and snails demolish them. Plus - I dunno what's in those "Snail Rid" chemical products, and I try to avoid extra bottles of crap in my tank.

But take a photo - I'm sure some clever bugger will tell you what kind of snail you have.

found some small snails crawling around the tank i have no idea what kind they are,

Doesn't matter, kill them.

or how they got in there,

Doesn't matter, kill them.

should they be in there????

No, kill them.

The only good snails are apple snails and you'd have intentionally put them in your tank. The rest, especilly for a new tank like yours are pests. Kill them.

Hmmm, Ira seems to have some dislike for snails, methinks

On the contrary, I gave up worrying about snails in my tanks, except for for the Malaysian trumpet snails. The ramshorns I find are good for eating algae and cyano. If I think there are too many in the tank I put a algae wafer in an upright glass in the evening and take it out complete with snails before the lights come on.

Some pics here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=51028

The only good snails are apple snails

And not all apple snails are created equal - the gold ones can decimate a planted tank overnight!

I pick snails out as I find them.

Such haters . I actually like them. I reckon they're kinda cute. I have Ramshorns and MTS in my tanks, they don't bother my plants at all. Only time when they did nibble my plants was when they were dying leaves anyway. Just don't let them overload your tank (I suck up most of the ones you can see during a WCs to keep them in check), otherwise the only other annoyance I can think of is, if they die, they leave their shells in the gravel.

I added dwarf chain loaches to my tank, and not only are they a great addition to the tank (looking zebra like) and have bottom dweller shoalling behaviours but if you don't over feed your fish they rip through snails like a drunk eating a curry. You usually see the damage they have caused when you do a water change / gravel clean and you see all the empty snail shells in the bucket. (They suck the snail out of their shells you see)

remember to always do research on fish before adding new ones to your tank, but dwarf chain loaches are relatively cheap, nice peaceful non aggressive fish, like certain gravels (softer finer for their whiskers), are small so good for smaller tanks, BUT are a schooling fish and need to be in numbers 3 - 5+ minimum.

Now I have gotten rid of the snail problem, I now have an algae problem!! :facepalm: time for a Siamese Algae eater me thinks.

Snails love cucumber. A good way to catch them is by keeping a small piece of cucumber under an inverted container (so ur plecos and fish dont get to it) overnight. You will find a lot of snails inside the container the next day morning. Happy snail hunting

I added dwarf chain loaches to my tank

I love the sound of new fish but im not sure if the budget will allow it! lol and hopefully i dont

Snails love cucumber. A good way to catch them is by keeping a small piece of cucumber under an inverted container (so ur plecos and fish dont get to it) overnight. You will find a lot of snails inside the container the next day morning. Happy snail hunting

Cool i might try that tonight!

i find the smaller ones to be good at keeping my rotting food down when i feed too much and managed to never have much problem with them eating plants

O really? i found that the new plants that i put in there the other day are having holes put in them i am suspecting it might be the snails, maybe? there are quite a few of them now.

Hehe send them to me I feed them to my puffers

I just removed about 20 small snails and there is still more!

I just removed about 20 small snails and there is still more!

Keep going, you're 1% done!

So I went and got 4 new clown poached. They did there Job for 3 days nd now there are more snails than ever in there. My partner found one clown poached dead this morning. But I never got a chance to see itbecause I was working so icouldnt investigate

poach * Loach

woops. sorry my phone auto corrected that. any of my posts that looked like that are done on my phone