Malaysian Trumpet snails

[Kit Craft]

I was thinking about getting some MTS for my tanks because they seem like a good addition to the ecosystem but are there downsides I should be concerned about? How about their impact on the bioload (mine are all pretty low to begin with). I have seen videos where they become so densely populated that they become the substrate (probably overfeeding but IDK). What about adding them to established tanks (dirt with a deep sand cap), will that release ammonia from the soil into the water or built-up gasses that will negatively impact the fauna? Will they compete with the other snails for food? Mystery and Ramshorn.

I've seen some basic info on these topics but nothing that answers directly. Maybe I am just bad at searching. 

Basically, talk me into or out of getting them.

Thanks all! 

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I have a tank with a little bit of soil and a sand cap with Malaysian trumpet snails. I lightly feed this tank as the only other creatures are 9 shrimp and 1 betta. For the most part the shrimp eat algae and catappa leaf. The betta either eats floating pellets or Repashy, or I will feed frozen foods with tongs, so it never even hits the substrate.

I barely see the snails because they like to burrow. If there is leftover Repashy I don’t see the snails going for it, but the shrimps do. I heard the snails are nocturnal but I don’t stay up to check back after lights out. 

They are so small, I don’t see any issue with bioload, especially since they burrow most of the time.

I test the water weekly, and never get any ammonia readings due to soil disrupt, etc

I can’t speak to your other questions, only these topics based on my personal experience.

P.S. When I had them in the shrimp tank they never competed the shrimps for food. They just kinda did their own thing. They are most interested in burrowing.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Kit Craft]

On 11/7/2023 at 1:07 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I have a tank with a little bit of soil and a sand cap with Malaysian trumpet snails. I lightly feed this tank as the only other creatures are 9 shrimp and 1 betta. For the most part the shrimp eat algae and catappa leaf. The betta either eats floating pellets or Repashy, or I will feed frozen foods with tongs, so it never even hits the substrate.

I barely see the snails because they like to burrow. If there is leftover Repashy I don’t see the snails going for it, but the shrimps do. I heard the snails are nocturnal but I don’t stay up to check back after lights out. 

They are so small, I don’t see any issue with bioload, especially since they burrow most of the time.

I test the water weekly, and never get any ammonia readings due to soil disrupt, etc

I can’t speak to your other questions, only these topics based on my personal experience.

P.S. When I had them in the shrimp tank they never competed the shrimps for food. They just kinda did their own thing. They are most interested in burrowing.

Thank you for sharing your experience. 🙂 I kind of figure feeding correctly is going to be the deal. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 11/7/2023 at 1:19 PM, Kit Craft said:

Thank you for sharing your experience. 🙂 I kind of figure feeding correctly is going to be the deal. 

 

[Kit Craft]

Thank you. I think I have seen every video Jason has every put out. I really like to over analyze. 🤣Rewatched the first one last night.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 11/7/2023 at 1:39 PM, Kit Craft said:

Thank you. I think I have seen every video Jason has every put out. I really like to over analyze. 🤣Rewatched the first one last night.

I just met Jason and Joanna in person!  They are so nice!

[Kit Craft]

On 11/7/2023 at 1:45 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

I just met Jason and Joanna in person!  They are so nice!

That is cool! I have been watching them for a number of years now. The golden mystery snail tank is one of the things that got me interested in snails to begin with but I just recently decided to take the plunge on a whim.

[Lennie]

The downside is, they are extremely hard to control their population if anything goes wrong. They bury, their babies are extremely small, and they give birth to live babies directly.

I had to leave town for 1 month and left my tank to care of my parents. When Im back, there were thousands of them. In fact, babies didnt even care if lights are on or off. They didnt even bother to bury like adults do. It was really unpleasing to look at the tank. And I am a huge snail guy.

 

I have all sort of "pest snails". These guys are probably the only one I know if they are in a tank, there will be never going back until I restart a tank from zero. Just fyi.

 

Oh I dont dislike them btw. But I would never intentionally introduce them to a display tank for sure. Id rather go with bigger snails if Im introducing any intentionally. They barely eat any algae I think btw. They are just a good cleanup crew for uneaten food but all it does is boosting their population. And they turnover the sand but I don't think this is even needed maybe except when you have a quite thick very fine sand.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Lennie

[beastie]

I have and always have had mts in my tanks. I love how they maintain the substrate, they are the reason why there are no decaying gas pockets, they never touch the roots of plants, they help maintain the wood.

 

I would never add them to a tank with stones in some shape or some hard scape, as they can level whole tank like that was designed in a way during a night 🙂

overfeeding make cause a population explosion but when you don't feed, they disappear. At most points i even thought i didn't have any mts until I took a sieve and checked substrate. They are that good at staying hidden 🙂

other burrowers you may consider is faunus after,but you have to feed it to not eat your plants. And same for certain rabbits (like the sp.)

[Kit Craft]

On 11/7/2023 at 2:24 PM, beastie said:

I have and always have had mts in my tanks. I love how they maintain the substrate, they are the reason why there are no decaying gas pockets, they never touch the roots of plants, they help maintain the wood.

 

I would never add them to a tank with stones in some shape or some hard scape, as they can level whole tank like that was designed in a way during a night 🙂

overfeeding make cause a population explosion but when you don't feed, they disappear. At most points i even thought i didn't have any mts until I took a sieve and checked substrate. They are that good at staying hidden 🙂

other burrowers you may consider is faunus after,but you have to feed it to not eat your plants. And same for certain rabbits (like the sp.)

Thank you. Yeah, that is what I was wanting them for, to move the sand around. Yeah, I was looking at chopstick and spike snails as suggest in other threads, but people were having issues with them eating plants. Seems to be some people have issues and others don't. Of course, that seems to sum up a lot of topics, differing experiences.

 

On 11/7/2023 at 1:56 PM, Lennie said:

The downside is, they are extremely hard to control their population if anything goes wrong. They bury, their babies are extremely small, and they give birth to live babies directly.

I had to leave town for 1 month and left my tank to care of my parents. When Im back, there were thousands of them. In fact, babies didnt even care if lights are on or off. They didnt even bother to bury like adults do. It was really unpleasing to look at the tank. And I am a huge snail guy.

 

I have all sort of "pest snails". These guys are probably the only one I know if they are in a tank, there will be never going back until I restart a tank from zero. Just fyi.

 

Oh I dont dislike them btw. But I would never intentionally introduce them to a display tank for sure. Id rather go with bigger snails if Im introducing any intentionally. They barely eat any algae I think btw. They are just a good cleanup crew for uneaten food but all it does is boosting their population. And they turnover the sand but I don't think this is even needed maybe except when you have a quite thick very fine sand.

 Thank you. I do have somewhat deep fairly fine-grained sand in my tanks. Two(ish) inches of pool filter sand atop soil. Which is what got me thinking about it. I don't really have any display tanks so to speak. I just kind of dot plants in there, drop wood and leaves and it is what it is, lol.

[Kit Craft]

Another question. If I pick some of these up, should I QT them? This will be the first-time buying snails to add to existing setups. My mystery and ramshorn have their own tanks. 

[ange]

I've never quarantined a snail and don't anticipate that I ever will. Is it possible that they can potentially have a pathogen? Yes. Have I ever experienced or even heard of a fish getting ill from a snail? No.

[Kit Craft]

On 11/8/2023 at 1:39 AM, ange said:

I've never quarantined a snail and don't anticipate that I ever will. Is it possible that they can potentially have a pathogen? Yes. Have I ever experienced or even heard of a fish getting ill from a snail? No.

Thank you. I have read a lot of posts that say more or less the same thing. 

[Tanked]

Like most of us, my MTS arrived with my first plants, as did the Bladder snails.  It didn't take long before I had a lot of them.  Mine never got more than 3/8th of an inch long.  My LFS is selling them for $.30 each, but they are larger.  I found them to be a lot more interesting than the bladder snails. My MTS population eventually died out.  I suspect that I still have a few but I haven't seen one in a while.  It is possible that I starved them out, or the bladder snails just outcompeted them for the available food.  As already mentioned, their numbers will be determined in part by how much food is available.

[Kit Craft]

On 11/8/2023 at 1:38 PM, Tanked said:

Like most of us, my MTS arrived with my first plants, as did the Bladder snails.  It didn't take long before I had a lot of them.  Mine never got more than 3/8th of an inch long.  My LFS is selling them for $.30 each, but they are larger.  I found them to be a lot more interesting than the bladder snails. My MTS population eventually died out.  I suspect that I still have a few but I haven't seen one in a while.  It is possible that I starved them out, or the bladder snails just outcompeted them for the available food.  As already mentioned, their numbers will be determined in part by how much food is available.

I think it'll be alright. I am a pretty careful feeder. I don't have a local fish store I am looking at ordering. Probably going to throw in a few colors of mystery snail I don't have too. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 11/8/2023 at 12:39 AM, Kit Craft said:

Another question. If I pick some of these up, should I QT them? This will be the first-time buying snails to add to existing setups. My mystery and ramshorn have their own tanks. 

No need.  

On 11/8/2023 at 1:39 AM, ange said:

I've never quarantined a snail and don't anticipate that I ever will. Is it possible that they can potentially have a pathogen? Yes. Have I ever experienced or even heard of a fish getting ill from a snail? No.

Agreed

[Kit Craft]

On 11/8/2023 at 2:31 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

No need.  

Agreed

Thanks, that makes life easier. I made the critical error of turning my QT tank into an actual tank. I mean, I have a 3 gallon critter keeper and a 5 gallon tote that could be used though, lol. 

[MattyM]

I have them in a sanded tank - don't overfeed and you'll be OK. I have other snails, corie cats, amanos - they all get the vast majority of food before the MTSs emerge. If I'm siphoning the tank and see some, I just suck them up for further population control. 

[Odd Duck]

On 11/8/2023 at 12:38 PM, Tanked said:

Like most of us, my MTS arrived with my first plants, as did the Bladder snails.  It didn't take long before I had a lot of them.  Mine never got more than 3/8th of an inch long.  My LFS is selling them for $.30 each, but they are larger.  I found them to be a lot more interesting than the bladder snails. My MTS population eventually died out.  I suspect that I still have a few but I haven't seen one in a while.  It is possible that I starved them out, or the bladder snails just outcompeted them for the available food.  As already mentioned, their numbers will be determined in part by how much food is available.

If yours never got bigger than 3/8” they probably aren’t MTS.  They are likely to be another species since MTS easily get to 1” and rarely even to 1.25”.  Might be Tarebia granifera which stay much smaller but are a cone shaped snail a bit chunkier built - wider relative to their length vs. MTS and stay much shorter - that 3/8” sounds exactly right for their average size.

[Tanked]

On 11/8/2023 at 5:46 PM, Odd Duck said:

If yours never got bigger than 3/8” they probably aren’t MTS.  They are likely to be another species since MTS easily get to 1” and rarely even to 1.25”.  Might be Tarebia granifera which stay much smaller but are a cone shaped snail a bit chunkier built - wider relative to their length vs. MTS and stay much shorter - that 3/8” sounds exactly right for their average size.

That would explain a lot, and why the LFS is selling them.  Now I'm going to have to find one in my tank for a photo shoot.  For thirty cents, I might even buy one.

[Kit Craft]

I didn't want to make another thread so I thought I'd ask an extra question. Will the MTS do okay in my tanks that are caped with pea gravel? Or sand only? 

[Odd Duck]

They will do just fine in gravel. My very first ever fish tank back in 1975 came with gravel that was infested with MTS. It was left dry for at least a couple weeks in an attempt to eliminate them when picking and plucking wasn’t successful. It didn’t help. So I think as long as they’re wet, they’ll survive no matter what substrate you have. 

[Kit Craft]

On 11/13/2023 at 5:08 PM, Odd Duck said:

They will do just fine in gravel. My very first ever fish tank back in 1975 came with gravel that was infested with MTS. It was left dry for at least a couple weeks in an attempt to eliminate them when picking and plucking wasn’t successful. It didn’t help. So I think as long as they’re wet, they’ll survive no matter what substrate you have. 

Thank you. I think mine will show up tomorrow. Maybe the next day so I am looking forward to adding them.