Golden apple snails - good for plecs??

Just checking out your views in Apple snails.
Some say they are good for plec breeding (and other fry) as the snails produce infusoria (microscopic creatures) from their gut which is excelelnt fry food. they can also help eat algae and small brown snails
Some think they pinch too much food and/or pollute the tank.

Anyway i keep some in my tanks, I find they breed readily. Some plecs eat the tiny snails. However I have to be carefull if too many snails as they absorb calcium from the water to grow their shells and this can cause ph to drop. (can be good if you have hard water you want to soften).
The down side i have is as they get bigger and hunt for daylight hiding spaces they go into the plec caves.

Its interesting to wathc where caves are occupied and the snail approaches and they deftly whack the snail away and it rolls accross the tank, only to be whacked back by another plec in a cave - like plec football! lol.

Do you keep any and what do you think?

I have one in the 96 with 3 small BN's they seem to leave it alone though they have had a good rasp on the shell :huh:
I do like some of the more interesting coloured snails like the Nerites but haven't a tank i could enjoy them in

Irene0100 said:

Its interesting to wathc where caves are occupied and the snail approaches and they deftly whack the snail away and it rolls accross the tank, only to be whacked back by another plec in a cave - like plec football! lol.

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rotf!! this is so true, and really amusing to watch. I don't have any snails atm, but back in the day I had 2-3. I never had issues with ph or water quality, as long as there was good filteration and water changes 2x's a week, it was all good. I usually fed dark blanched romain every day as a precaution for the calcium, I never had shell breakage or splitting. My plec's tollerated them well besides the odd bunting away from food or like you said caves. I've been concidering buying more again just because I miss the entertainment, lol.:lol:

I used to have four of them, i was thinking of keeping them all in a fry tank, but didn't want to end up overrun by snails, so i just put one in seperate tanks.

The only problem i found with them, is they all eventually dissappeared, i searched the tank each time one went missing, but couldn't find them.
I found the dead snails one day, in a box at the bottom of the tank rack, when searching for a piece of equipment.
They didn't all jump at the same time, but each one crawled out of the tank and fell off the back !

Maybe i should have pluged the tank lids gap, where the heater cable and filter pipes go in with some kitchen roll, but i didn't expect them to crawl out of the tank.

I like the idea of them cleaning the tank sides as they went about their business.

Our L134's used to eat our apple snail young...

they climb out of the tank to lay eggs. its easy to avoid getting overrun cos they lay the eggs in clumps out of teh water and you can just take them away. Also two does not mean they will breed cos unlike our garden snails where 2 is enough, apple snails are one of the few types of snail to have a single sex.
If anyone in UK wants any I would be happy to post some.

Hi all,
They are great to keep, you can watch them crawl very slowly to the water surface, breathe some air through their syphon and then "parachute" with their foot fully extended back to the bottom.

The only problems with them are they potentially grow very large, they eat some of your plants (and they really like most pleco vegs) and they must have a pH above 7 and plenty of calcium, or you get really holey shells really quickly.

Link here:
<http://www.applesnail.net/>

cheers Darrel

well my ph is under 7, but water tends to be hard here so has some calcium in it, plus feed with food containing some calcium. Sometimes i add some eggshells, but I guess some snails do have fairly thin shells. I also do a lot of water changes.
I love they way they climb to top of a rock or peice of wood and wave their feelers about!

My water is pretty hard,so the shells would be fine. I have been interested on and off in getting a couple.

Have you got any pics Irene?

here is one pic, not very good, will try and get some more. this one seems to have a crack in his shell, not that that will bother him!


notice 2 common snails in front of him.

have added some more pics in another thread in case you want to move them from pleco chat, not sure what forum category they should fall in.

Irene0100 said:

have added some more pics in another thread in case you want to move them from pleco chat, not sure what forum category they should fall in.

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I moved it to general tropical fish:yes:

Heres the link for everyone

http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=945


and Thank you for the pics:clap: