# keeping snails with african cihlids?



## Preston4479

Can snails be kept with african cichlids? Will the higher temps or salt bother them?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Brian


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## BioG

depends on which snails, but for the most part all the pests certainly seem to survive quite well in african set ups. I personally keep mts, unintentionally in most of my tanks but have benefited from Olive nerites and Clea Helena for mts control and have been able to create a balance with all of them. I know others who keep all those I mentioned as well as pond snails and rams horn, along with apple snails.

I have heard that salt is bothersome to mts but I have found that they aren't staggered by anything short of dynamite!


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## Fogelhund

It depends on which Africans, and which snails. Many times snails such as Apple Snails get picked on and killed. The smaller snails seem fine, just as MTS.


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## BioG

I mispoke above when I said "I have benefited from Olive nerites and Clea helena for MTS control" WHat I meant was that yes, I have benefitted from nerites but only as amazing algae eaters and, separately, I have benefitted from Clea;Anentome snails as pest snail eaters who seem to avoid nerites as snacks


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## LiveFishDirect

We love Apple snails and mystery snails. 
We use these in all our vats.

:thumb:


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## PeterUK

I have introduced mts's to all of my 9 tanks :thumb:

I cant see how people can call them pests :-?

The ONLY reason that you will see them during the day is if there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the water ........ good visual indicaters :thumb:

They eat all and any uneaten food that the fish miss :thumb:

They will ONLY reach 'plague' proportions if the tank is overfed ... see above. If there is millions and squillions of them just cut back on the feeding and they wont breed as often. :thumb:

The small young snails are eaten by most fish when grazing and sifting the substrate. :thumb:

I use sand on all of my tanks ... as mts's are a burrowing species and they keep the sand 'turned over' and there so are no dead spots or compacted area's :thumb:

I think every aquarist should have them in their tanks :thumb: =D>


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## michebai

Ok, this is going to sound like a very stupid question. I've had apple snails and I love them but find that the fish pick at them until they die. I've had those MTS snails in a tank with my apple snails before and the MTS snails killed the apple snails.

My question is would the fish choke on the MTS snails? I'd be pretty mad if I got some and they killed my fish, but I have a huge algae issue in my HRP tank and the clown plecos are not eating it.


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## lmhollist

Who could really say. I have MTS (came in on some plants) in my South American tank and from time to time the angelfish mouth them but they never actually try to swallow them shell and all. My Jack Dempseys absolutely love young ramshorn and mystery snails. They pick them up and suck out the body, leaving the shell behind. I have yet to get any snails in any of my African tanks so I don't really know how they would react to them...


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## Acorn27

I have apple and zebra apple snails but it seems the cichlids can pick them to death. They don't put the whole snail in their mouth (mine are normally the size of marbles) but they go for their body whenever it is exposed. They havent' actually eaten the whole body from what I've seen, but either critically injure them or the stress causes the snails to die.


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## BioG

You want your algae gone. Get you some Nerite Snails. You won't be dissapointed, they're algae eating machines that do not reproduce in freshwater.


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## guissalo

I dont know how to open models with blender. What I should do?


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## cjbtech

I have had very good luck with gold mystery snails in my shelly tanks. That don't last long in my mbona tanks & salt in the tank dosen't seem to bother them at all.


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