Few questions...

[VirgoWolf]

I am thinking of breeding shrimp and snails... mainly cherry and ghost shrimp and I'm not sure what type of snails.

I have a few questions though...

1) What would be the ideal setup? I was thinking a planted 10gal, but would it be better to go full planted with a substrate such as Eco Complete, or to have small pots of plants, some moss balls, and a handfull of Java moss?

2) Can cherry and ghost shrimp be kept together without problems? Can they interbreed?

3) What type of snail would you suggest to keep in this setup that will not overrun my tank and not eat all the plants? Side note: I will be feeding the snails as snacks to Yoyo loaches.

4) Is there anything else I should know before diving in?

Also, can anyone give me any pics of your shrimp/snail breeding setups?

Thanks! *SUPERSMIL

 

[MOsborne05]

I don't know much about the shrimp because I have just started breeding them myself. I've got two 5.5 gallon tanks, one for cherry shrimp and one for snails. The shrimp tank has eco-complete substrate, a few live plants, a sponge filter and heater. The snail tank has gravel, a couple of plastic plants, a cave, a small filter and a heater. It was bare bottomed to keep it cleaner, but I've found that snails breed faster with a layer of muck in the tank. Also, the gravel gives the babies more hiding spots.

IME, the easiest and fastest snails to breed are common ramshorns, and they don't bother live plants at all. Stay away from Giant Columbian ramshorns, because they will devour a live plant in seconds. I've also got some Olive nerite snails that are supposed to be the best algae eating snails. They have only been in my tanks for a couple of weeks and I've probably got 50-60 eggs already.

If you want to buy snails online, this is where I got mine from. The prices are pretty good and she is very helpful.

http://www.jayscustomcomputers.com/wilma/Snails/page1.html

BTW, good idea getting your snail colony going before you get puffers, lol

 

[VirgoWolf]

Hehehe, who said anything about puffers? Just want something that breeds somewhat slow because I DON'T have puffers, just planning on some yoyos and want a few snackies for them. I was also planning on keeping the snails with the shrimp to clean up extra food.

Thanks for the info and the link, sounds simple enough.

 

[VirgoWolf]

What are your thoughts on the "mystery" snails? They seem to be the most appealing to me and I will probably end up putting some of the snails in various tanks once I get them up and running.

 

[Lotus]

1. A 10g works fine. You can have it planted if you want. You may read that anubias and crypts shouldn't be kept with shrimp, but I have a tank full of those plants with no problems.

2. I think it would be OK. They certainly won't interbreed. Ghost shrimp are harder to breed, as they have a planktonic stage where they're really small/fragile.

3. Ramshorn or pond snails work fine, and will give you a small population to feed your yoyos. As both snails and shrimp eat "leftovers" the shrimp tend to keep the snail population somewhat in check. Some ghost shrimp will eat snails.

4. Not really.

 

[FroggyFox]

What are your thoughts on the "mystery" snails? They seem to be the most appealing to me and I will probably end up putting some of the snails in various tanks once I get them up and running.

I love apple snails/mystery snails Just only one per tank so you dont have to deal with little ones.

 

[VirgoWolf]

Thanks Lotus, I guess I will stick to cherrys then, I like them better anyways, I just thought the ghosts would breed faster since they are so common and cheap, but no worries!

Froggy.... only having one kind of defeats the purpose here LOL. The idea was to breed them, that's hard to do with only 1.

 

[MOsborne05]

I was told (by a lfs guy, I know) that apple snails are harder to breed because it takes them forever to get big enough to breed. They need to be, like, the size of a quarter before they will breed. But if you get a few adult ones it should work.

Just stay away from Malaysian trumpet snails because their shells are really hard.

 

[VirgoWolf]

Well most of the ones at my LFS are at least that big, so that shoulden't be a problem, but what are there multiplication rates like?

 

[FroggyFox]

Sorry guess I didnt read close enough Apple snails lay clutches of eggs and you wait a week or two for them to hatch and they'll have hundreds at a time. I let mine lay eggs and let them hatch one time...talk about a mess. Those things eat SO much, even though they're so cool. If you get neat colors to breed you'll get some of every color. I had a green one and a yellow one breed and now a couple of generations later I have one that is ORANGE! Check out www.applesnail.net to find out anything you want to know about them.

You may want to doublecheck and make sure...I think some of the snails have shells that are too difficult for critters to eat.

 

[VirgoWolf]

Hummm, that seems like alot of snails at once LOL, is there any that don't produce SO MANY babies? I may just get 1 snail per tank to keep things clean, besides the tank with the yoyo I mean.

 

[MOsborne05]

Ramshorns only lay about 5 or 6 eggs at a time, and I think some may get eaten or something because I don't think all of them hatch.

 

[VirgoWolf]

OK Ramshorns need pairs to mate right? I always get confused with snails LOL.

 

[MOsborne05]

Yeah, but most of the time they will be pregnant when you bring them home

 

[VirgoWolf]

Hummm, I was looking around online and I found pink mystery snails, I wonder if the LFSs have the odd ball colors... I doubt it. I think we'll probably go with the mysteries for my moms tanks, but not for breeding, probably just get Ramshorns for breeding when I get there.