Ramshorn Snails

Ramshorn snails are considered to be amongst the worst snails by most aquarist. This, I must disagree based on my personal experience. Some people are having issues keeping the population down within their tank, but this is usually due to over feeding. Ramshorn snails are not entire without benefits. They have some advantages that other fishes and snails do not have.

Let us begin with how these snails get into the aquarium unnoticed. The eggs of the snails are small and sometimes not noticed, they account for 100 percent of how the snails get into the aquarium. These eggs which find their home on small plants within the aquarium continue to grow bigger until they hatch. The unfortunate part of the tory is that an egg does not equal a snail; about 20 to 30 baby snails are the result of one egg hatching. Imagine the population of just a couple of dozens of eggs within the aquarium.

What does ramshorn snails eat?

The Ramshorn feeds on algae, dead fishes, dead plants as well as uneaten fish food. They also feed on carrots. You can try to reduce the number of Ramshorn snail present in the tank by putting some carrots into the tank. The snails will attack the carrots and you can manually remove both carrots and snails. The Ramshorn snail does not like the fresh carrot; they prefer to feed on aged or older carrots that have been submerged in the water for a longer period of time (3 to 4 days).

Which fish do eat Ramshorns?

The Ramshorn snail can also sometimes serve as food to your fish. If the fish are not well fed, they can feed on the smaller snails. Although not all kinds of fishes feed on the ramshorn snail, the most common ones that do includes the angel fish, gourami, puffer fish and loaches.

Do ramshorns need aerated tank?

Another attempt to remove these Ramshorn snails from the tank is by allowing the tank to be poorly aerated. The snails require a good aeration; a poorly aerated tank will have the snails coming to the surface of the tank. This will avail the aquarist the opportunity to remove the snails manually.

Advantages

The Ramshorn snail can be advantageous as well. The advantages include the following:

1. They help to avoid catastrophe that might arise form a dead fish in the tank. Small size fishes whose death might not be easily noticed by the aquarist can be easily eaten up by the snails. This helps sanitize the tank.



2. It serves as a check to determine if the water quality in the aqurium. A tank that contains ramshorn snail will have the snail coming to the top if the water quality system is poor. If this is the case, it maybe a good time to do a big water change (immediately).



3. Algae do not always do much good for fishes, however the ramshorn snaisl can feed on the algae.

Lifespan

The ramshorn do not live forever; within a year, their lifespan comes to an end. However, there are some that could live for more than two years.

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