# Snail or Shrimp



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

First off , my name is Noah , I'm new to this site and found it very helpful .
I am thinking of starting a "clean up crew" in my 55 gal and 10 gal , I have a sand substrate in both tanks and its very hard to keep looking nice and clean . I am either going to go with shrimp (class shrimp) or some sort of snails(prob mystery snails seeing as that is what my local shops have . what I need help with is witch would best fit my needs ? 

Oh one more thing I would deff. be willing to give a good home to someones over stock of shrimp or snails lol 

Thanks for any and all info !


----------



## Peeps (May 24, 2010)

I would go with the shrimp, they are so cute. But that's just me. You could go with a pleco in your 55 gallon, that's another option.


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

I was thinking of both shrimp and snail for the 55 gal . But I'm not sure about the pleco in with my mollies . I never remove a preg momma to be ,I let her drop in the tank so there wont be alot of stress on them and I net out the fry . I'm worried the pleco might make a snack out of the fry . In the 10 gal i have a mixed bunch of Guppy and not sure if the shrimp would bug the Guppy .


----------



## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

shrimps are great for cleaning up extra food, and snails take care of algae wonderfully. I would recomend a combination of the two.

The reason I would recomend a combo of the two is that while you can get things like amano shrimp which will eat algae, it is very common for them to stop eating algae when they discover how much better real food tastes.

The only thing with snails is that you need to be carefull about which species you chose, unless you dont care about large populations. My recomendation would be to get nerite snails, their both beautiful looking and they cannot breed in freshwater.

With shrimp I would recomend something cheaper such as ghost shrimp, they are interesting looking and excelent ant cleaning up. The upside with them is that they are often sold as feeders so you can get them really cheap and really easily.
However the upside with ghost shrimp is also the downside, because they are sold as feeders, it isnt uncommon for them to have high mortality rates, after you have a good population going though they have long lives and are an excelent cleanup crew for left over food.

The last thing I have to say is no cleanup crew is perfect, nothing will eat poop so no matter what matter of creatures you deposit into your tank your going to still have to vaccume the bottom to clean up the detritus.


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

Thanks guys , I have made up my mind on the 55 gal with the combo of both Ghost Shrimp and Snails . Now all i have to do is find the Nerite Snails because my local shop only has the "feeder shrimp" aka Ghost Shrimp . 

Could any one tell me where I can find Nerite Snails on line for a fair price in good health ?


----------



## snyderguy (Feb 9, 2010)

Try getting a powerhead for your tank to increase the water flow. It'll help keep the sand clean :]


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm running a 300 gph power head with DIY prefilter and it helps in my 55 gal but i can't use one in the 10 gal with the Guppies ( alot of them are still young and would get thrashed around to much ). I know I am picky lol . I figured shrimp and snail would help keep me from using the vac every other day and back to norm once a week during water changes .


----------



## snyderguy (Feb 9, 2010)

You probably love the pleco but if you got rid of it, it would help out a lot with all the wastes.


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

I don't have a pleco any more sadly , I was afraid it would eat the molly fry before I could get to them . I don't have a real prob with wast its mostly food that gets stuck in the cracks of my rocks and in my plants ( fake ) the Mollies don't eat anything much from the bottom and I don't want my tank to get thrown out of balance because of the rotting food , so I end up doing a vac and 25% water change every other day and that is in its self a job ( packing water in 2 gallon bucket ) .
But I think from you guys have said it would be best to go with both shrimp and snail in the 55 gallon and just snail in the 10 gallon with the Guppies .


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

*Thank you all for the great info , its great to have a site like this !*


----------



## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

http://alphaprobreeders.viviti.com/fish-shrimp-supplies

they have some horned nerite snails listed (horned nerite snails are smaller than zebras or tracked). They are listed for a relatively decent price (19.95 for six), which is good compared to what my lfs sells them at (5.99 a pop). 

Though if you look around you may be able to find some better offers.


Also you may want to look into placing a filter sponge over the intake for your filter, ghost shrimp infants and fish fry may be sucked into the filter otherwise.


----------



## Peeps (May 24, 2010)

You could get a smaller pleco. They are many smaller ones to choose from that would do an excellent job on the algae.


----------



## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

he wants something that will minimize the amount of cleanup he has to do, plecos put out more poop than most fish...


----------



## noahhill (Jul 31, 2010)

Thanks for the link Corwin ! I havnt been able to find much online , I guess it would help more if I knew what I was looking for ( never kept snails before) so I dont know much about them .

Peeps , Plecos ,gold fish and blue gills are on my "not to get any more " list , they are poop machines ! I started out using gold fish to cycle new tanks but they're more trouble then they're worth ! I had a 8 inch pleco with 2 ,5 inch (from my catfish/blue gill pond ) and omg water changed ever day in a 55 gal was way more then I could handle lol. So , now I'm going for an easier less time consuming setup so I can enjoy it more then work on it .


----------

