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Just bought a new tank


davidP

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Guest Ferret1959

Mmmmmm I had a goby once, it grew to a fair size feeding on anything and I mean anything that swam by.

Had to manually remove a sucking loach from it's greedy vicelike jaws.

It didn't stay with my collection very long that's for sure.

 

 

Oh by the way how would you like a complete tropical marine set up for the cost of a drink?

 

I will be moving house soon due to her indoors wanting me outdoors and the place I'm looking at (upstairs flat) won't accomadate all my fish tanks and unfourtunately I won't be able to move that one in.

 

Oh I'm in Leicester so it would need picking up. :D

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A kind offer, but sadly I don't have room for another tank either.

Anyway, a quick update. Had to go to Jersey on Thursday night for a family funeral and just got back to find the tank absolutely swarming with snails. I knew we had a few that must have come in on the plants, but there are literaly 100's of them now, mostly just a couple of millimetres long. The few that were in there must have been breeding like crazy! I'm not too fussed about having a few of them, but it does seem like an infestation at the moment. Hopefully as I introduce more fish the eggs and baby snails wil get eaten. Anybody any suggestions of a good way to keep the numbers down naturally??

DISCLAIMER: All opinions herein are fictitious. Any similarities to real

opinions, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

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Guest Ferret1959

The best thing for snails is clown loach or any similar loach.

 

A mate of mine had the same problems, he tried all sorts of potions and gimmicks but it was only when he put a coulpe of clowns in that the snail population disapeared.

 

To be honest and it's only my opinion is that you want NO snails in there unless you get a virgin one.

 

Snails only to need to breed one time for them to produce eggs for years.

 

 

Now thw big question is how do you know a virgin when you see one.

I have been looking for years and not found one yet. :D

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a snail explosion can be caused by over feeding, so reducing this should help, but depending on the type of snail might mean they are a good addition. Trumpet snails burrow in the substrate and stop it compacting and don't eat plants, although Loaches will feed on them, and are a much better method than chemicals, which kill the snails which then decay and polute the water, if you are after removal. Others like the small round ones are good in breeding tanks, as they eat infertile eggs reducing the fungus which could attack health eggs. Another way to remove them is to place half a cut out mellon in the tank, black out the tank, then remove the mellon a few hours later along with the snails feeding on it.

 

Regarding your stocking and future additions, I'm afraid to say but I think your already over stocked. The general rule is 1" of fish per gal of water, and some of the fish you have grow big like the golden sucking loaches which can reach 12" each (they also get nasty as they age), flying foxes and USD cats both grow to 6" each. Regarding the gobys, you really need to find out which type they are, as some are brackish and most will prey on smaller fish. Silver sharks can also grow to over 12" and are really an active schoaling fish, requiring much more space than you can provide. My advice would be to return or trade in the larger growing fish, and stick to smaller ones. For algae, try 4 or 5 otocinclus which are dwarf plecos growing no bigger than 4cm (but make sure they are healthy with good bellys on them, as they are often starved before export and are hard to bring back round) and perhaps an ancistrus (bristlenose plecos) which do grow to around 6" but are much better algae eaters than the fish you have at present (males to 6" but females usually no bigger than 4").

 

Also the CO2 unit, this will not have much effect if the lighting isn't high enough, around 2watts per gallon from good plant tubes is the point where it starts to improve growth (so you need at least 2 or better still 3 tubes), and match it up with a good aquatic fertiliser.

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Thank you for those answers chaps, a few things to think about certainly :)

DISCLAIMER: All opinions herein are fictitious. Any similarities to real

opinions, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

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