# Quick question about MTS



## Alin10123 (May 22, 2005)

Hey guys,
I just had a quick question about MTS.
In the past, i have actualyl had snails in my tank before. They seem to multiply like crazy and sort of get out of control. 
My question is this. I want to keep a few MTS in my tank so that they will stire up the substrate. Can i stick a big goldfish in there that will eat their babies? 
Will their shells be soft enough to eat when the babies are younger? 
Is there any other way to control the population? I dont want the babies getting everywhere in my filters and pumps.

thanks


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

I have 11 fish tanks. 2 of them with goldfish. All of them with MTSs, to include my dwarf puffer tank. I did not intentionally add them to this tank but somehow they ended up in there. I see small, empty MTS shells in this tank every so often but never big ones. I believe the large ones remain safely under the substrate where they reproduce and if they get careless enough the dwarf puffers eat them right out of their shell, hence the empty shells of the kids. 
In my two tanks with goldfish. I have some enormous large MTSs but never see any babies. Once they reach a certain size they are safe. Below that size, however, the goldfish gobble them right up. Again they have to remain under the gravel to be safe until they reach this size, not too many seem to make this. At night I see around 10 of them in my 46 gal tank and 3 in my 10 gal tank and that has not changed in the past 6 months or so.
I believe you would be ok with MTSs in a goldfish tank, the goldfish will keep them under control.
In all my other tanks I routinely have to go MTS fishing or they would have taken over the tanks by now.


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## Alin10123 (May 22, 2005)

garfieldnfish said:


> I have 11 fish tanks. 2 of them with goldfish. All of them with MTSs, to include my dwarf puffer tank. I did not intentionally add them to this tank but somehow they ended up in there. I see small, empty MTS shells in this tank every so often but never big ones. I believe the large ones remain safely under the substrate where they reproduce and if they get careless enough the dwarf puffers eat them right out of their shell, hence the empty shells of the kids.
> In my two tanks with goldfish. I have some enormous large MTSs but never see any babies. Once they reach a certain size they are safe. Below that size, however, the goldfish gobble them right up. Again they have to remain under the gravel to be safe until they reach this size, not too many seem to make this. At night I see around 10 of them in my 46 gal tank and 3 in my 10 gal tank and that has not changed in the past 6 months or so.
> I believe you would be ok with MTSs in a goldfish tank, the goldfish will keep them under control.
> In all my other tanks I routinely have to go MTS fishing or they would have taken over the tanks by now.



So theretically if i see little MTS babies and there were quite a few of them in there all i would have to do is stick a larger goldfish in there? DO you think as babies that they would eat the shell too? 
If they dont eat the shells will the shells eventually rot causing ammonia spikes?


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

My goldfish eat the snails, shell and all. My dwarf puffers do not seem to eat the shell but suck the small MTS out of the shell. The shells in their tank are empty, in the goldfish tank there are no small MTS shells laying around. The shells consist of calcium so I doubt they foul the water.


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## Alin10123 (May 22, 2005)

garfieldnfish said:


> My goldfish eat the snails, shell and all. My dwarf puffers do not seem to eat the shell but suck the small MTS out of the shell. The shells in their tank are empty, in the goldfish tank there are no small MTS shells laying around. The shells consist of calcium so I doubt they foul the water.


Thanks for the advice. It looks like my solution is to go with MTS and once in a while stick a goldfish in that tank for population control.

thanks again.


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