Tank Update + Snails or no Snails ?

Right so the Tank is doing well all water reading are coming back well and the water is clear so so far so good fingers crossed !, I recently bought some red cherry shrimp to help out with algae and because they are awsome little things and jsut look great , especially when contrasted against the dark wood in my tank. I Also bought some Moss balls for them although they dont look the most natural in my tank I think there good and the shrimp will enjoy them.

I think he looks pretty awsome in this picture although it is a little blurd.

I also added 5 more neon tetras in order to make a nice sized school of 10 which seem to be doing well and really add soemthing to the tank I think. Although ever now and again one or 2 seem to fight is this normal as I thought they were suposed to be quite peacefull fish ? any help would be great.

Lastly i have recently been finding afew small nails in my tank, i know it is inevitable through the diffrent plants ive bought that i will get some , and at the moment there are only about 4 small snails but i wanted to know where you guys come down on snails , would you try and get rid of them or keep afew and try and regulate the amount kept ? At the moment I dont see the as a problem but as soon as plants start to go there outa there !

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Comment by Raymond Boulanger on February 13, 2013 at 8:07pm: Just IMO i like my tanks to have snails ... both my tanks do my 55 planted has a small amount do to raphael catfish eating them and my 44 hsa a tremendouse amount of snails cant get rid of them but the have so far stain off my plants so i dont mind much i would sugest if they get out of hand to get a fish that will eat themto keep them at bay, again just imo

Comment by Peter on February 13, 2013 at 8:25pm: Snails aren't bad but they look bad wen they population explodes. And trust me it will. Get rid if them now if u want a snail free tank if u don't in a few weeks ull have tons of snails

Comment by HeatherS on February 14, 2013 at 7:25am: So far I've pulled 32 snails out of my tank, in under a month and I saw 4 new babies in there yesterday that I've gotta try to grab. But I just bought a nice well-behaved apple snail for my other tank!

Comment by Rob Carroll on February 15, 2013 at 8:59am: by the sounds of it I think I am going to try and get rid of them i don't want a snail tank , although i have found 1 that looks completely different to the other it has a long pointed shell rather than the oval like shell, is it another species or just enjoying a different shell to the rest ?

Comment by HeatherS on February 15, 2013 at 3:06pm: maybe the pointy one is an assassin snail.. that would be good.. will eat the other ones! see if you can ID it and keep it around. I don't know if THEY have population explosions though!

Comment by Peter on February 15, 2013 at 5:17pm: The small spiral shell 1 is most likely a trumpet snail. Those multiply fast. But if it is an assasin snail u new a male and female for it to reproduce.

Comment by Robert Jango on February 16, 2013 at 12:15am: Snails are like algae, they're biologically beneficial, but kind of ugly. There are fish that eat snails, and snails that eat snails - the aptly named assassin snail. The "pointed" snail might be a Malaysian snail. These snails usually stay out of sight under the gravel They are great scavengers and great for the tanks ecology.

By the way, you seem to have an artist's eye - one of the more attractive tanks I've seen on this site. The natural style arrangement is simple but subtly beautiful.

Comment by Rob Carroll on February 16, 2013 at 6:07pm: The pointed snail i have in there does like to stay round the substrate so it it is one of those which i think it is ill try and keephim in there to help out thanks for the advice very informative,

And cheers for the compliment i can't wait to try to scape a larger size tank as there will be greater opurtunies in terms of plants and hardscape.

Comment by HeatherS on February 18, 2013 at 6:37pm: After all this talk I found 8 more baby snails in my 30 gal, so I went out and bought an assassin snail. What do I feed him AFTER the snails are gone?!! If he does his job he'll be well worth the $2.45 I paid for him.

Comment by Robert Jango on February 19, 2013 at 1:37am: I remember somebody saying their assassin snail ate mussels... or was it clams? I forget which one but I think either will work. Don't leave the shellfish in the tank too long though - for obvious reasons.

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