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Fish that play nice with snails


Cast Autumn
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Hello everyone, new to the forum, can anyone recommend some fish that can live with mystery snails in a cold water aquarium that WON'T bite off their antenna? I have a planted 10 gallon with 6 zebra danio and 2 mystery snails and they like to nip the antenna and I feel bad for the little guys, so I would like to find another schooling fish that might fit nicely. Water is harder with a ph closer to 8 than 6 and cold as I stated before. I like cyprinids but is there any that will be nicer than zebra danio?

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How cold is your water? (around 60-70F? ) White Cloud Minnow would be my go to choice for a cold tank with that high of a pH. I had them before in my old tank with a bunch of snails with no problems. They are smaller schooling fish so they should pose no harm to your mystery snails and perfect for a 10 gallon. Another schooling fish is Pygmy Cory, they school very well and unlike most corydoras, they tend to swim in the middle of the water column instead of being strict bottom dwellers. They can tolerate high pH environment but the temperature has to be at least 70-72F. 

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1 minute ago, Ashe said:

How cold is your water? (around 60-70F? ) White Cloud Minnow would be my go to choice for a cold tank with that high of a pH. I had them before in my old tank with a bunch of snails with no problems. They are smaller schooling fish so they should pose no harm to your mystery snails and perfect for a 10 gallon. Another schooling fish is Pygmy Cory, they school very well and unlike most corydoras, they tend to swim in the middle of the water column instead of being strict bottom dwellers. They can tolerate high pH environment but the temperature has to be at least 70-72F. 

The water is cold, I would say in the mid sixties, I was thinking about white clouds potentially. Will they predate shrimp (Neocaridina) because I might be interested in adding some of those as well.

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3 minutes ago, Lynze said:

I raise baby mysteries with Endlers. They are about as nice as they come. They never nip at them. Unheated as well. 

Endler's may be a nice choice, any that aren't super showy? Sounds weird but the reason I like zebra danios is because they are subtly pretty, not in your face brightly colored, always liked drabber freshwater fish lol.

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It is possible to keep white cloud with shrimps but you have to give the shrimps plenty of hiding spots like rocks and driftwoods and mosses. Now the white cloud is small so they would usually only go for shrimpletes or any shrimps that will fit in their mouth. Bigger shrimps will have no problems, they could just fence off the white cloud like my amano did with my betta. If you are trying to grow a colony of shrimps or have expansive shrimps then I would not recommend keeping white cloud with shrimps. However if you are just keeping shrimps as a clean up crew or to push back the algae then I think they should be fine. Amano shrimps seem to be a more compatible species than other shrimps like cherry. I had white cloud with amano before and I didn't really see any issue between them (the amano also was a full size adult so it that might of helped). The bottom line is yes you can keep less expansive shrimps as a clean up crew with white cloud. Just make sure that they are not juveniles when you introduce them to the white cloud and make sure to provide decent hiding spots. 

To contributing to the other reply. Endler is one of my favorite fish. They are extremely hardy and friendly too. I know there are some breeds out there that are not too showy but in general your local fish stores usually have the typical endler which is pretty showy 

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/27/2020 at 2:05 PM, Cast Autumn said:

Hello everyone, new to the forum, can anyone recommend some fish that can live with mystery snails in a cold water aquarium that WON'T bite off their antenna? I have a planted 10 gallon with 6 zebra danio and 2 mystery snails and they like to nip the antenna and I feel bad for the little guys, so I would like to find another schooling fish that might fit nicely. Water is harder with a ph closer to 8 than 6 and cold as I stated before. I like cyprinids but is there any that will be nicer than zebra danio?

What did you decide to get?

My endlers can handle temps down into low to mid 50's (took about 18 months to acclimate them) and my females look very similar to my female zebra danios. 

My danios don't nip at the snails though, maybe because I keep my tanks densely planted?

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