How should i go about this??

[AGetupKidDan]

Ok, so i bought some plants awhile ago and one of them came with a small snail. I didn't know much about them then.. so didn't remove it.

Unfortunetly this snail got rather large, and started laying eggs in my comminty tank.. i moved him into my betta tank ( figured less food so maybe he'd stop reproducing...WRONG!)... now he's eating my plants! I don't really wanna kill it, its quite big and i'd feel bad..
So the next best thing is to to get a snail-eating fish to kill them.
So like my sig. says, i have 5 white clouds, 1 dwarf gourami, and 3 cories in the 10 gal. (and 2 amano shrimp) .. Will I be able to add any type of snail eater to this? or will it be over-stocked?
If it will be over-stoaked.. can i move my cories to my 5 gal. and then add a snail eater?...
I need some help here.. also if i can fit a snail-eater.. what can i get that doesn't get big?

 

[Zoidfarb]

How large is the parent snail?


I am over-cautious about number of fish in an aquarium. Talk to people more experienced, but if you do water changes and have good filtration, you can probably add some skunk or dwarf chain loaches which are both very small. Other, larger Botias may push the limit of your 10 gallon tank, especially since you should get more than one. If you only keep one chain dwarf or skunk loach alone, it will be stressed and may get aggressive toward other fish.

Try to post on the Bottom Feeder section...there are several very knowledgable people who can advise you on Botia loaches much better than me.


IF you are advised against adding skunks are dwarfs for some reason:

...then you may have to abandon the snail infested tank. It may pay in the long run, if you want a nice planted tank, to just set up another 10 gallon, and transfer the fish and be very scrupulous about keeping snails out. Once an infestation breaks out, it can be very hard to get rid of...even snail eaters usually don't RID a tank of snails, but just keep them down to a low point. Breaking down and setting up a new tank is a pain, but if biocontrol with snail-eaters doesn't work, I think it's still easier and safer than resorting to chemicals.

You said you kind of like the big snail and feel bad about killing the offspring...you know, if you transfer your fish, you can keep the infested tank as a snail tank. Inverts are very interesting, and you like your big ol' snail, it can be the focal point of this tank. Of course, eventually that population will crash when they overrun their food supply... but you can add some snail-eating loaches to this tank. Your big one, depending on its size, may be too big for the loaches, but they'll gobble up the offspring and keep the population too low to harm the tank much. Then you can replant this tank and keep the big guy in it w/o repeating the whole process.

 

[catfishmike]

i don't see too much of a problem wit trying a skunk loach of a dwarf chain loach.i would watcch a skunk closely as they do have aggresive natures but i have seen well behaved skunks too.the dwarf chain loach is a good and bad idea.good because they are nice,small loaches that are said to be great snail eaters.the bad thing is they are rare fish have a high price tag and are very seasonable.this is the season right now but time is running out also as they go fast.

 

[AGetupKidDan]

Thanks for the responses!

ZoidFarb: Yeah i was thinking about loaches, but wasn't sure which would be ok in my size tank.
Thanks for the suggestions,
Since i don't know what my LPS will have.. I think i'll go look around, then find out what my options are.

Catfishmike: Thanks i'll look out for skunks or dwarf chains,
So do you think one of these will be ok alone in a 10 gal?

 

[catfishmike]

yea i think so.the dwarf would be best but at the cost you can't afford to forget too many water changes.skunks on the other hand are very hardy fish and should be ok in a ten even if you do forget waterchanges for a while.my buddy keeps a ton of fish in this 30 gallon tank he has.i would always wonder when his loach was gonna croak,but instead it grew.those skunks seem like tough fish.if you do choose a skunk just make sure that it has a small tight space it can cram itself into for comfort.skunks will jam into a small hole and take turns looking out in the wild.sometimes they can be found with a few dozen fish jammed into a hole that looks only big enough for a couple of fish.