How Many Snails Should I Have In My Tank?

When it comes to the inhabitants of a tank, there are a lot of species that you can keep in one. Along with fish, you can keep shrimps, snails, live plants, etc. In a saltwater aquarium, you can maintain a reef. You can add lots of things to make your aquarium more attractive. 

Snails are also a great species you can have in your aquarium. Although you will have to maintain the tanks properly as they reproduce quickly and your tank will be filled with snails in no time. So knowing the number of snails that you should keep in a tank beforehand is a lot helpful. With it, all the unnecessary hard work will be lowered. 

In this article, we will talk about the number of snails you should have in your tank. Not just that, we will also go through some other things related to snails. So here goes.

How many snails should I have in my tank? 

Before keeping snails in your aquarium, you will have to know the right number of snails to keep in your tank. Balance is all you have to maintain in an aquarium, so keeping the correct number of snails becomes crucial. 

You can keep 2 snails in a 5-gallon tank or 2 snails per 5 gallons. So you can get the number of snails for your tank with the gallons of tank you have. So if you have a 20-gallon tank, you can keep 8 snails in your tank.

Are snails good for your aquarium?

Snails are good for aquarium. Until and unless the number of snails are controlled they are beneficial for the aquarium. They are a natural component of the aquatic ecology and are actually incredibly helpful in aquariums.

Snails help a lot with the cleaning of the tank. They cleaning up uneaten fish food, decomposing fish waste, and cleaning up algae. These snails won’t hurt your living fish or plants, but by eating any dead creatures or unhealthy foliage, they help keep your aquarium clean. 

Effects of Too Much Snails in a Tank 

Snails are not bad for an aquarium. They are capable of cleaning your aquarium by getting rid of leftover substances and many more. Snails naturally consume dead plants and other types of debris, so they may be somewhat advantageous for your tank. But the problems begin when the number of snails increases in a tank. If their population spikes significantly, they can start to pose issues. However, the snails could start feeding on your aquarium plants once they’ve finished with the present algae growths and leftover substances. 

Aquarium snails can become a general annoyance in addition to perhaps posing harm to your live plants. The snails will make a nuisance out of your beautiful tank by being all over the place. They will be crawling all over the walls of the tank, obscuring the view and making the aquarium absurd. Aquarium snails may slither into your filter input tubes, which might prevent your filter from functioning correctly. 

How to get rid of Snail Infestation in Aquarium?

There is no danger to your aquarium from having a few snails in it. The snails will keep the undesirable materials out of your aquarium. Snails will eat algae and leftover food before they ever have a chance to harm your aquarium, giving them little chance against them. Their procreation is the cause of the issue. They multiply quickly, so before you know it, your aquarium will be overrun with snails.

Although you can manage this infestation in several ways. There are techniques you may use to regulate the snails’ rate of reproduction. 

• Give meals under strict monitoring: You must be aware by this point that snails also consume leftover food. Common sense dictates that the more food waste there is, the more the snails will flourish in your tank. Therefore, it is important to start feeding your fish in a regulated manner if you are overfeeding them. Give them only what they require. 
• Food trap: You set up something akin to a mousetrap if snails are overrunning your aquarium. The snails may be lured using a decoy much like rats can. You must utilise vegetables as a decoy, like lettuce, carrots, and other types of vegetables. Before going to bed at night, insert the decoy. The moth to a flame-like decoy will draw snails to it. Those decoys will be eaten by a swarm of snails in the morning, which you may manually remove. The easiest way to manage a snail infestation in your aquarium is with decoys.
• Get snail eating fish species : The simplest is to increase the number of assisting hands in your tank. Numerous fish species feed only on snails, and the snail’s shell is defenceless against them. Yoyo loaches, clown loaches, and zebra loaches are excellent at getting rid of snails from your aquarium. Being bottom-dwellers, they will easily dig up the substrate in pursuit of the snails and consume them, rendering the snail’s lone line of defence worthless. You may also get help from goramis and betta fish for keeping the snails under control in your aquarium. Put a few of them in your aquarium and watch as they consume the extra snail.
• Get cannibal snails: There are snail cannibals, which are similar to the fish that devour snails. The snails that will eat up other snails in your tank and regulate the snail population in your aquarium are called assassin snails. The snails will be consumed while they remain on the substrate. They cannot reproduce on their own like other snails since they must mate in order to do so. 
• Copper Sulphate: Chemicals are also available to eliminate snails from your aquarium. Copper sulphate is the most popular one. Chemicals are the quickest approach to get rid of snails since they are designed specifically to do so. However, you must adhere to the instructions in the chemical exactly, as chemicals are never healthy for an aquarium. If copper sulphate is not utilised in the proper amounts, the fish and plants in the aquarium will suffer. So the final resort is to use chemicals.

Conclusion

Keeping the optimal amount of snails in a tank is crucial. With a good start, you will be avoiding a lot of unnecessary stuff. So the correct number of snails for a tank is 2 snails per 5 gallons. If you want snails you should also be prepared for a snail population growth. As snails can reproduce easily, their numbers can increase easily. But don’t worry the snail population outbreak can be controlled.