Thinning The Horde......free MTS

[Fatcat]

Time to thin out the "horde", I have a few malasian trumpet snails looking for a new home. They are a hard working cleaning crew who will keep your substrate nicely turned, polish off any left over fish food or dead plant matter, and will not munch on any live plants, all while you are sound asleep at night. Their only real drawback is they are also good at making baby trumpet snails, so you may eventually have to thin yours out as well.

I'll be handing them out free to anyone that wants some, I'm in the Humble area so let me know if you want to pick any up.  8)

[mynameiscandace]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

i would like some if you sonr mind, hopefully my perch wont eat them...send me an email if thats all cool. candace_is_great@yahoo.com

[rrocket2002]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

What kind of fish do you keep with your MTS?  Are your fish agressive?

Raul

[SCOTT]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

Not sure I understand the question there Raul, these are hard shelled snails which resemble a small cornucopia of sorts. These are livebearers, and typically 1 snail will net you about 1000 in a months time. Not exactly an endangered species. In my experience, most snail eaters don't bother these guys much, I guess the shell is just to hard to be worth the effort if there are softer targets around. MTS are good in all substrates, with all types of fish. They adapt to all water conditions, up to and including brackish. As with any live object in your tank tho, if you make a rapid change in environment, expect large dieoffs, but with the numbers and fast breeding program that these guys have you will get survivors who will rapidly overrun your tank again.

[rrocket2002]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

Let me put it another way.  I have a 125G tank with mostly southamerican fish....large and aggressive fish.  Average size is about 8 inches, some over 12 inches long.  

I do not know how big the snails get and I'm concerned that my fish will simply gobble them up whole, shell and all or crush their shell.

Do you have to supply the shells...I'm ignorant about snails.

Raul

[SCOTT]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

OK, oversimplifying here but, a snail is an organism which grows its own shell, a slug does not. As for eating the snails whole or crushing the shells, I wish they would!!!, hehehe. Do you remember the snails in my tanks that looked like a unicorn horn? These guys start off very small, as in pinhead size, and rapidly grow to nearly 2" in length for some of the larger specimens. You would be hard pressed to kill off these guys with simple predation alone. If threatened these guys will quickly burrow into the gravel and dissapear, well, quickly for a snail anyway.

[rrocket2002]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

Thank you.

[Smokin_Cache]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

Do people have problems with them getting out of the tank? How do you get rid of them if you don't like them?

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

About the only way I have ever been able to get rid of them is to dry out the gravel for 2 or 3 weeks before using it again.

[wvgdiscus]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

You can boil the gravel for about 30 minutes. The shells will still remain in the gravel but no more snails.

[Jose]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

My puffers easily tear apart ramshorn snails. If you let them reproduce they will be everywhere even in your filter. I don't keep cichlids put i've read that some do eat snails.

[RussGB]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

Do people have problems with them getting out of the tank? How do you get rid of them if you don't like them?

I have them in all of my tanks, except for the big community (150g) where Karen the Crayfish lives, and the 20g one where I have my rescued goldfish. Karen eats ANYTHING she can catch - plants, driftwood, old and sick fish, my lovely golden clams and any kind of snail. Karen is a redclaw and classed as being not very agressive in terms of crays! Also my goldfish seems to pick them out of the substrate. I have also heard clown loaches will get rid of them for you.....

[charliefoxtrot]

Re: Thinning The Horde......free MTS

I've got some in all my tanks including with the dwarf puffers (actually down to one dwarf puffer these days).  I feed them all kinds of surplus snails and they usually don't bother with the shell, just stick their head in like a puppy dog with it's head caught in the trash can.  Some of the malaysian trumpet snails do get away because they hide and stay hidden.  When I moved the puffers out of the ten gallon, all of a sudden I had a bunch of snails that had been hiding in the gravel for about a year.