So, I was cleaning out the canister the other day and in a fit of oddity I tossed in a couple of young ramshorn snails. They're on the outside of the filter matting, so (should) be held away from the rotors and bits that might get damaged or cause damage.
Any thoughts on this? I'm curious to see if I'll need to change/clean the filter less often.
Filter ecosystems
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Filter ecosystems
"I can eat 50 eggs !"
The amount of debris that a snail will eat can add up to quite a bit, but it then shows up as snail poop. I do not think you will be ahead by adding snails to the filter. I do not even know if snails will eat the stuff that the filter picks up.
If the snails were in the tank (and safe) they could eat the fallen food that the fish miss. This would be better than seeing if they will eat the fine, partially decomposing stuff in the filter.
If the snails were in the tank (and safe) they could eat the fallen food that the fish miss. This would be better than seeing if they will eat the fine, partially decomposing stuff in the filter.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.
Happy fish keeping!
Happy fish keeping!
Yah, but with the loaches the filter is about the only real refugia in the system.
I reckon that metabolism and growth in a snail must take up at lest 25% of the organic mass consumed. If the crud in the filter is entirely organic detrital flox (plus a tiny bit of sand) then there should be some reduction in total. It'd certainly take a heap more then a 1/2 dozen snails though :)
Next time i'll load it up, and I'll keep you posted.
Might also build/set-up a secondary canister specifically as snail refuge.
I've got pond, ramshorn, MTS, a tiny little ramshorn-type and some little mysteries to choose from. The MTS will certainly eat what's in there and won't mind the flow, but at the time I only had the RHs readily on hand.
I reckon that metabolism and growth in a snail must take up at lest 25% of the organic mass consumed. If the crud in the filter is entirely organic detrital flox (plus a tiny bit of sand) then there should be some reduction in total. It'd certainly take a heap more then a 1/2 dozen snails though :)
Next time i'll load it up, and I'll keep you posted.
Might also build/set-up a secondary canister specifically as snail refuge.
I've got pond, ramshorn, MTS, a tiny little ramshorn-type and some little mysteries to choose from. The MTS will certainly eat what's in there and won't mind the flow, but at the time I only had the RHs readily on hand.
"I can eat 50 eggs !"
Careful also that young snails may make it though whatever barriers there are and get stuck in the area with the impeller. Might kill the snail, but also can stop the impeller. I have found more juvenile snails in the filters than adults, I think the babies that get in there are the ones that are safe from the fish (of course) and get a fair amount of food, so quickly grow big enough to get in trouble.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.
Happy fish keeping!
Happy fish keeping!
every canister filter I've ever had on a loach tank accidentally ends up being a refugium for pond snails. as diana said, they produce plenty of their own waste, and the fish's fresh water shouldn't be filtered through a bunch of snail waste; in the end, you'll be rinsing the filter media just as often. also, I think the ramshorns will get too big to happily/safely live inside your filter.
if you want an easy way to breed out snails, you don't need to set up another filter. just throw a tub with some tank water outside, add some plant matter or hearty floating plants, snails and bam, millions of snails. ponds or ramshorns should do really well just eating dead plant matter you scoop out of the tank and algae that will naturally form in the container.
if you want an easy way to breed out snails, you don't need to set up another filter. just throw a tub with some tank water outside, add some plant matter or hearty floating plants, snails and bam, millions of snails. ponds or ramshorns should do really well just eating dead plant matter you scoop out of the tank and algae that will naturally form in the container.
Just call me Pierce 
"Act Well Your Part - There All the Honor Lies"
"Act Well Your Part - There All the Honor Lies"
The basic concept here is that snails are a filter for fish waste and this is not true.
Snails will break down fish food so the decomposer bacteria can get to it faster, but basically snails have the same metabolism as all other animals:
They eat complex foods and digest these foods, extract what they need and poop out the rest.
They respire using oxygen and produce CO2.
They can be part of a food web, but their needs are so similar to the fish that they are not complimentary in function. They simply increase the rate at which food can be broken down.
If you really want to set up a biological filter for a fish tank, then set up a separate tank as a sump and plant it heavily with plants that have their roots in the water, and leaves in the air.
Plants remove nitrogen (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) and other fertilizers (phosphate) and minerals from the water, and add oxygen to the water.
This is the real complimentary organism to the fish.
Snails will break down fish food so the decomposer bacteria can get to it faster, but basically snails have the same metabolism as all other animals:
They eat complex foods and digest these foods, extract what they need and poop out the rest.
They respire using oxygen and produce CO2.
They can be part of a food web, but their needs are so similar to the fish that they are not complimentary in function. They simply increase the rate at which food can be broken down.
If you really want to set up a biological filter for a fish tank, then set up a separate tank as a sump and plant it heavily with plants that have their roots in the water, and leaves in the air.
Plants remove nitrogen (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) and other fertilizers (phosphate) and minerals from the water, and add oxygen to the water.
This is the real complimentary organism to the fish.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.
Happy fish keeping!
Happy fish keeping!
Right, so we've decided that the 10-50% metabolization and/or redistribution of detrital material in the filter is not worth the potential headaches of trying to culture snails in there. Fair enough.
So yesterday I cleaned said filter, and.... wow... the filter seems to be a very good habitat for these snails. The walls were packed with egg-packets and the floc was gritty with tiny juveniles. The organic crud in the filter is apparently very tasty.
Three tiny fan-shrimp were also trapped in there, and apparently fat n' happy as well.
On a similar note, I put a couple of larger fan-shrimp in the tank a couple of weeks ago and in this recent vacuuming i noticed a whole lot less organic crud coming up/out. Have others seen similar?
So yesterday I cleaned said filter, and.... wow... the filter seems to be a very good habitat for these snails. The walls were packed with egg-packets and the floc was gritty with tiny juveniles. The organic crud in the filter is apparently very tasty.
Three tiny fan-shrimp were also trapped in there, and apparently fat n' happy as well.
On a similar note, I put a couple of larger fan-shrimp in the tank a couple of weeks ago and in this recent vacuuming i noticed a whole lot less organic crud coming up/out. Have others seen similar?
"I can eat 50 eggs !"
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