# Ramhorn snails - good or bad?



## MaxAltitude (Mar 14, 2017)

I have learned that having a planted tank also means having snails. I guess there may be a way to treat my newly acquired plants before adding them to my tank to prevent the snails… but it’s far too late for that for me. In my case, I have acquired a supply of Ramhorn snails. It started out as a few random snail sightings, then progressed to catching about 20 per night, for a few nights, about an hour after the lights go out. I gave up on that as I wasn’t sure it really mattered. So now I’m at the stage where there are about 20-30 or more or so visible during the day, all over the place. I suspect that if I were to check out how bad it gets at night, there would surely be over a hundred or so. 
Once in a while I had noticed that it looked like something was munching some of the leaves of my plants, but more often than not, they actually seem fine and there isn’t plant damage.
So, my question now is whether I should do anything about them, or just leave them be? Are they good or bad for my aquarium?


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## DBam (Aug 9, 2010)

You're probably fine. They won't destroy the plants and can clean up algae and scraps of leftover food or dead plant matter. Depending on what you have in there, you might be able to add something that eats them to keep their numbers in check.


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

I added 1 assassin snail and slowly he's getting rid all my pest snails in my little 5.5 gallon spec tank.


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## israelyang (Jan 24, 2020)

I have always had them in my tanks. Sometimes when I lose my stock due to moving for example, I would actually seek them out and buy them.
They come in different colors, shades of brown and orange. The orange ones I find really beautiful as they contrast the green plants. I have not noticed them eating healthy plants. If it bothers you much you can leave a piece of zucchini and in the middle of night you can easily catch a large number of them.
They do poop a lot, and if you have substrate such as pebbles, their poop would just filter and collect down at the bottom and not sit unsightly at the surface. I suppose if your plants could benefit from that.
They are also really good at eating soft algae. Sometimes when the algae is starting to become visible, I can see their bite path on the grass.
One thing to note is that they don't do well in soft water as it lacks the calcium their shell needs. When I moved to Vancouver from Ontario, I couldn't keep them alive. Their shells would turn bristle and white. I eventually found out that the water here has no mineral, and wow I dose Seachem Equilibrium for GH.
This may sound cruel to some when I had a huge population I occasionally would crush a few small ones on the glass, and the fish and shrimps would feast on them ferociously.


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## CRS Fan (Apr 21, 2010)

Ramshorn snails are one of the few I actually don’t mind as a pest hitchhiker. I find they are beneficial in finding uneaten food and eating some types of algae. They don’t seem to become a nuisance like bladder snails (physa/radix) or Malaysian Trumpets.

JMHO.

Stuart


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