snails

how nassarius snails should i get for my 125 gallon reef with a dsb

 

alot!

 

how many is alot

 

LOL, no kidding. I'm getting ready to start a 125, and it needs A LOT of EVERYTHING!
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2 hundred if snails only, don't mix snails with crabs because they have a habit of being generous and giving the hermits there shells. actually you could get your stuff from reefcleaners.org the have a Buy one get one free on snails right now. get the 500 pack of ceriths for 80.00 double that and you will have 1000 SNAILS!! muhwahaha

 

I'll give you my opinion, which is only that, and nothing more...If you are going to get the large ones (Nassarius arcularius, or Giant Tongan Nassarius or whatever the sellers call them) I would only get about a third or fourth as many as if you get the smaller species (Nassarius vibex, Nassarius horridus, etc). They have to eat something, and they don't eat algae, so you have to consider how much you'll OVERFEED your tank to keep your Nassarius population happy. Gallons of water isn't as important in figuring out how many you need so much as how many square feet of sand surface you have in your tank. Judging from what I've seen in the wild, and in my tank, I think a reasonable number of the small Nassarius snails would be four or five per square foot of sand. If you decide on the large ones, which I personally don't care for, I'd suggest only one or two per square foot of sand. The people that sell these will give you a grossly inflated number based on the number of gallons of water in your tank, but considering that two or three small Nassarius snails can eat a whole shrimp every day or two, you'd have to feed 1000 Nassarius five pounds of shrimp a week, or something nearly that ridiculous, to keep them happy. They are, after all, carnivores, and will only eat the leftover food, animals that die in your tank, or whatever extra you feed them. The Cerith snails are a whole different matter, as they aren't scavengers, they are algae eaters. You should try to calculate the number of these that you need by the amount of algae you have in your tank, or the amount that you expect to have. A mix of snail species/families usually works out better than one or two types, as they all have their own specializations.

Cheers,



Don

 

the reason to get the snails was to keep my sand clean as you can see in my 125 thread i want to know how i can keep it looking new

 

i would get a sand shifting gobie snails don't do much

 

i have one it doesn't do much of anything it just cleans in front of its hideout

 

depends entirely on how many fish you have and how much you feed them. size of your tank doesn't really matter.

So....
1. How many fish do you have?
2. What are their sizes?
3. How often do you feed?
4. What do you feed?
5. How much of it do you feed?