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RE: Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #71




>The main problem
>with snails IMHO is that if you have to medicate the tank, 
many medicines will
>kill off the snails, and then you have a fouled tank on 
your hands. I find
>that it is best to keep snails at a minimum. They can 
overtake a tank. Clown
>Loaches and skunk loaches do a fantastic job. If you want 
to keep a few large
>ones the skunk loach I have will only eat the small ones.

My main problem with snails in my heavily planted 40g was 
that I could pull out 50-75 ramshorns every other day. 
 They just kept reproducing...Never had the problem with 
medication killing them, thankfully, and I got a couple of 
skunk loaches to keep the population under control.  They 
eat the smaller snails and the eggs, so I just had to pull 
out most of the larger ones.  They do keep the algae on the 
glass under control, and I am glad to have the 20 or so 
that I have not pulled out of the tank.

I also got two very small clown loaches to work on the 
snails, figuring that when they outgrew the tank they could 
go to the 55g.  But I found that they like to poke holes in 
the leaves of my amazon swords and java fern. Oh well. At 
least they're fun to watch :)

Regards,
Melissa
mshea at delta_info.net