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Hello All! I have been seeing a few things on videos online and I've seen things over the years from pretty much every youtuber that covers the hobby on this topic. I was reflecting on Zenzo's video in my head while watching a random video this week and it let me to a conclusion. Snails might not be a beginner friendly option for new hobbyists. Let me explain. If we think about this logically there should be some snails that you'd want to avoid just to make your life easier. Some snails might be better suited for a beginner hobbyist, while others should be avoided. Beginner Friendly Snail Traits: 1. This snail would help eat algae and leftover food 2. This snail would breed slowly or not be able to reproduce in freshwater as a means to limit bioload impact 3. This snail would not damage equipment easily 4. This snail would not harm anything in the tank, such as other fish 5. This snail would not cause exceed "need" (more on this later) In the wild, there are a lot of different methods of survival. One of the main methods for creatures lower on the food chain is to simply propel the population forward using a sheer number of offspring. One amano shrimp female can have hundreds or thousands of zoes per spawn. some fish can do the same thing. Certain snails also use this tactic in some fashion. If you put that methodology into an enclosed ecosystem and you don't have a way to control that population boom, then logically it is going to be a perpetual issue over time. For clarity, I do not know enough to say "avoid these snail species", but I have ran into this issue in the past. Maybe this becomes an issue in a few weeks or even months, but it is often an issue and something that beginner hobbyists very well could struggle to overcome. The most often beginner advice is to recognize the tank as an ecosystem and understand that snails can play a key role in that ecosystem, but as Dean mentions in the video above, there are some issues when it comes to how much of a bioload the snails can impart. Along the same line of thinking, how snails reproduce can compound this issue. Someone sees this "beehive" looking structure in their tank and it instantly freaks them out. Honestly, it would freak me out too if I just happened upon the tank and I saw a big snail clutch. Nerites pepper hardscape and plants with egg casings which can be very difficult to remove for some hobbyist. Some snails use cloning and don't require a male and female to reproduce. There is a lot of methods of reproduction and if I was a beginner hobbyist trying to understand what is going on in my tank easily, I would really struggle at times to fully grasp all of the things to look out for in terms of keeping snails. Worst case scenario, someone goes to the pet store to buy a single mystery snail. Once they get home the snail lays a clutch that is fertile and they don't notice the clutch under the hood on their tank. After a bit of time one snail is now hundreds, in a 10G tank that isn't meant to have that load. I can see how an experience like this would push someone to avoid the hobby if that was their first experience. This also extends pretty heavily into pest snails (pond or bladder snails) hitchhiking onto a plant. FInally, the last point on the list above and trying to avoid a snail that would put too much "need" on a tank. We do know snails can use up the minerals in the water. Whether this is done via food or done via mineral absorption, there are going to be some circumstances where someone might run into GH/KH issues in their water and that could lead to a PH crash, shrimp deaths, fish not having the correct water parameters, and a lot of what I am getting at here is some pretty complex issues that aren't immediately intuitive for someone who is just trying to get their hands wet in this hobby. Especially a younger hobbyist, a true beginner, I can only imagine how slippery the slope can be when it comes to something like this. (and this is something we have seen on the forums!) Ultimately, I don't really know what my beginner recommendation would be for a snail. I think using amano shrimp might be easier for most beginner tanks, but that is just my own perspective. I have ran into issues keeping snails and I was that beginner hobbyist at the time. I have learned a lot more about them since and I do plan to have snails eventually. What do you think? What would your best "beginner friendly" snail be and why?

Hi, guys, new here! I’m wondering how to stock my 16-gallon tank, 24x12x14 (61x31x37 cm, 63 liters). It’s stocked with a school of 10 black neon tetra, a colony of 50+ red cherry shrimp and a Hypancistrus L340 “Mega Clown” pleco. Is it okay if I add in a shoal of 5 Corydoras sterbai/trilineatus? I’ll be receiving the Corydoras, but I can set up a different tank for them if absolutely necessary. Also, is my pleco going to be lonely? It’s still a juvenile. I’m able to get it a friend of the same species or L136. It is very shy. I’m currently running the default filter (less than 80 gal/h ~ 300l/h), as well as another one (100 gal/h ~ 380 l/h). I’m able to add a third one (65 gal/h ~ 250 l/h). The tank is heavily planted. Thank you so much for reading and replies!

Hi, I have a 15g Fluval Flex and am very interested in loaches, I know of the kuhli loach, the dwarf chain loach, and the hillstream loach. Are there any other small species that could work in my tank? Thanks, Jack

Hi I have a flu Al flex 15 g tank (I neglected it for a while but I’m getting back into the hobby) with 2 white skirt tetras , 1 neon tetra, and a 2-2.5 in green fish with red fins (not sure what it is) I would like to get 4 more white skirt tetras, 5 more neon tetras, a cleanup crew, 6 white cloud minnows, and lots of plants. I am currently using a mixture of sand and fluval stratum for substrate. Will I be able to fit the white cloud minnows? Any substrate suggestions? Any recommendations for cleanup crew? Any plant suggestions? Thanks, Jack

Hey! My name's Emily, and I'm a beginner aquarist who began keeping fish in February 2020! Even though it's been about 2 years, my knowledge in this hobby is still very little because I have had no access to experience- which means I haven't been able to get my hands on many plants, animals, or aqua scaping tools besides the very basic necessities (as you can see in the thumbnail, my 10 gallon tank is bare of plants except for a dwarf hairgrass and crypt bought from this website. I didn't even have enough sand to cover the top layer of my substrate! Luckily, that dilemma is solved now). The thumbnail picture is old, I replaced that barely-functioning filter I used to keep in a 2.5 gallon with an Aquarium Co-op filter and I removed that horrible dragon decoration. I've been able to get by for getting fertilizer, medicine, water testing kits, a gravel vacuum, a filter, and all those other tools by begging my parents to allow me to use my allowance to buy these supplies off Amazon or Aquarium Co-op, haha. While I do have an LFS, it's a really crappy one where the animals there are neglected, there's a really limited selection for the aquarium supplies, and everything is overpriced. I try my best to give my male betta, Ciel, the best life I can; considering that his diet consists of only hard pellets and bloodworms (also flakes he refuses to eat) and that his tank is located in the kitchen (not a good choice because of the fumes from the sink chemicals or the smoke from cooking), I feel like I haven't been able to live up to that. I still have a lot to learn, and after 2 years I am still stuck with knowing only the basics. Ciel is my first fish, and he hasn't gotten sick yet in these past two years I've owned him- but I have no experience with treating sick animals (every other day I get paranoid that Ciel might be sick and I am unable to recognize the signs) or with taking care of plants (my dwarf hairgrass and crypt have nearly died off on several occasions). I want to have more experience by getting some tankmates for Ciel, like cherry shrimp or tetras, but first I need to fill up all that empty space with plants, maybe even driftwood or aquascaping rocks if I can somehow get my hands on them. I already learned the hard way when I got myself a mystery snail before conducting proper research, and he died a premature death from an irritated foot and malnutrition. You can see him in the attached image. Anyway, sorry for literally writing an essay, haha, but that summarizes the experience I've had so far into this hobby. It's tough, but Aquarium Co-op's blogs/youtube videos and being able to order supplies like plants and filters from them really helps me out to enjoy this hobby. Aquarium co-op team, if you're reading this, thanks a whole lot! You guys are awesome!

Though it could be a few years down the road, I've already started contemplating and researching new fish, tank and filtration. Currently I just have a 10g betta tank. I really like the color of the various cichlids. But the more I looked into it, I knew it wasn't for me. I like to look at them, but the care for them seemed more than what I was capable of. Is there an alternative when you can get one type of fish (with color) in a community tank? I already learned gouramies are too territorial to be amongst themselves. And I'm not crazy about tiny schooling fish. Am I thinking the impossible and just go for a mix of little fish of varying colors? As for tank size, I'm thinking 55g. If depth were needed, maybe 75 or 40g breeder.

Betta fish in my opinion are the best beginner fish. They can withstand anything.

Im soon hoping to start breeding some fish. Any ideas on what would breed easy in a 20 gallon?