How many snails do I need?

[saltyrich]

I've got a 55 gallon tall tank with 12 snails in it now (10 turbos and 2 trochus). How many more do I need to get any equilibrium? I want enough snails to keep the glass clear, but to still have enough food for them to consume.

 

[bluemarlin]

How old is your tank? Do you have LR that the snails can graze on? Are you planning on adding grazing fish like Tangs to the tank? As a general rule, I would say that you need about 27 snails (1 for every 2 gallons). But youo do not want them to run out of food because they will die rather quickly. Again, how much do you have for them to eat?

 

[saltyrich]

I've got about 35 lbs of LR. The tank's been running for about 4 1/2 months now. I had a substantial amount of algae. I've also got 10 scarlet hermits, 3 emeralds, 10 blue legs, and a sally lightfoot working on the algae on the rock. I'm going to increase the rock probably to around 75 lbs.

 

[killyah]

my lfs told me 1 snail per galon, so that would be 55 snails for your tank. ppl corect me if im wrong.

 

[wrassecal]

I have a 55 and it's been up about 6 months. I've added snails as needed, by how much algae I'm cleaning myself. I'm up to 12 snails, IME add the snails as needed so as not to cause die off. I originally put in 10 and lost 4 because I didn't have enough algae.

 

[ed r]

Unless you have an algae problem, I think you have enough of those types of snails. One per gallon would be way too many. You might want to consider adding some Nassarius snails to cruise the sand, although they would not eat algae.

 

[thehat]

I keep about 50 snails in my 55 and 50 hermits.
They keep everything clean and haven't lost too many. I had a dozen every six months or so. My arrow crab has lunch every now and again. <img src="graemlins//urrr.gif" border="0" alt="[urrr]" />