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A smaller botia like zebra or dojo or yoyo loaches would work like a charm. Get 4-6 of them, whichever kind you choose. Clown loaches are also ravenous snail eaters, but they get very large.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I wouldn't suggest dwarf puffers for a few reasons. For one, I don't think they would do well with that stock. I don't think they would mix well with the dwarf gourami in particular because they don't move very quickly and if a puffer DID try to take a nibble of some tasty ventral or something the gourami would very likely retaliate and you would have some bloodshed. Also the tank is fairly heavily stocked and IMO dwarf puffers are better in a sparsely stocked and heavily planted setup. They can also be fairly timid so with boisterous fish like zebras darting all over the place they could be frightened, not that I have tried it, I just wouldn't do it. Second, it is a bad idea to keep a DP in a tank with a larger MTS. Shells of MTS are too hard for a DP to crack but that won't stop one fom trying. That could result in injury for both the DP and the snail.

I agree that you probably don't have the space for loaches. If you felt comfortable squeezing a trio of small loaches like yoyos, you could try it but you seemed reserved about that so I wouldn't go there. If you wanted, you could remove a few corys (I would suggest the pandas, yoyos will be far more entertaining and they look better to boot, although this opinion may get me flamed).

Instead of getting a snail eater, how about manually removing the snails? I wouldn't use any copper based snail treatments with the scaleless plecos or small corydoras because they could cause trouble, also it would kill the larger MTS. Instead drop a bit of blanched lettuce in the tank (you will have to be creative and surround it in something so the plecos can't get at it, maybe in a sort of wire cage that is a large enough mesh for the snails to get through or in a makeshift cave with a very small entrance). Leave it overnight and in the morning you should be able to pull it out with the pest snails attached. Cut down feeding as the snails will not reproduce if there isn't enough food for them. I usually just pull any snails out while I'm cleaning, crush the shells and feed the remains to my fish. Your dwarf cichlids may or may not eat live snails, some like them, some don't.

EDIT: BTW, from the link that cali posted, here is the profile for the Dwarf Puffer. Indeed they are fully freshwater, and will only tolerate *slight* brackish conditions.

http://www.pufferfish.co.uk/aquaria/species/pufferfish/types/tetrtrav.htm

Another commonly found puffer that can be kept in freshwater, stays fairly small and is worth looking into if anyone is interested in them is the figure 8 puffer.

http://www.pufferfish.co.uk/aquaria/species/pufferfish/types/tetrbioc.htm

Last edited by trystianity at 05-Jul-2005 03:37

They are mildly aggressive and with the right set-up and tank mates will pose few agression problems. However they have 4 sharp teeth and when they do get aggressive with a fish it can pack quite a punch. That is why some may think of them as "nasty". Ive heard many stories where these puffers have shredded other fishes and to the inexperienced aquarist it is easier to say "That fish is horribly agressive", rather than "I picked the wrong tankmates".

Last edited by katieb at 04-Jul-2005 20:22

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Dwarf puffers are NOT nasty fish, nor overly aggressive. They might be as aggressive as a very mild cichlid, no more.NOT

www.dwarfpuffers.com as stated above.

They are sometimes nippy, from what I read, however in my experience, they only attack snails. I have no slow fish, or fish with extravagantly long fins, though. They are easy fish to keep, as long as your ammonia, nitrates, and nitrates are in line.

They would only be big waste producres if you over feed them, but neons are if you over feed them.

Carinotetraodon travancoricus is the dwarf puffer and they are only freshwater.

10gallon: 8neons 5gallon: 1betta
1oto
2platys

"This subject is one of great confusion! If you search for the scientific names of Dwarf Puffers, you will come up with names like: Tetraodon travancoricus, Monotreta travancoricus and Carinotetraodon imitator.

I eventually learned that there are only two species (or variants): Carinotetraodon travancoricus and Carinotetraodon imitator."

www.dwarfpuffers.com

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Dwarf puffers are STRICTLY fresh water. They hardly get over an inch long. They leave my glass catfish, von rio tetras, harlequin rasboras, dwarf frogs,white clouds, cochus blue tetras, striped raphael catfish, and blue rams entirely alone( 3 different tanks, 2 with dwarf puffers). The only thing they bother is the snails.

Got a scientific name for this fish?

Only the fish I know as a 'Dwarf Puffer' is Tetraodon fluviatilis, which is cited as preferring slightly to moderately brackish water. If yours is a different species, let me know. Incidentally, I found a nice page on Puffer Fishes: namely this page. According to the species list here, the following are cited as being strictly freshwater:

Carinotetraodon lorteti
Chonerinhus modestus
Chonerinhus nefastus
Fugu ocellatus (though I have my doubts)
Tetraodon duboisi
Tetraodon lineatus
Tetraodon mbu
Tetraodon miurus
Tetraodon schoutedeni
Xenopterus neritus

The remainder usually prefer brackish waters (strength varying according to species). Plus, some Puffers are extremely bad tempered: Tetraodon lineatus is described on the site thus:

These very aggressive puffers are often bought by unsuspecting owners. They should not be kept with any other fish and will not tolerate their own kind. In fact, Al Castro from the Aquarium Fish Magazine once wrote, "I have no idea how they can get close enough to each other to breed."

They originate from the Nile River Basin and the East and West Nile in North/Central Africa as well as the Chad basin, Niger, Volta, Gambia, Geba and Sénégal Rivers.

Meanwhile, back to normal service ... anyone have any other snail eating fishes to add to the list here???


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I know that Kribs like snails..my krib has eaten my 3 apple snails
Robby

---

I know human beings and fish can co-exist peacefully.

i have a snail eater..some wheres in my tank

i added must have been 6 pest snails to my tank this morn (about a half hour ago) and now they r all gone the whole front of my tank has some 15-25 snail shells every time i want to find out who it is, i put a few in, and watch..but i would get distracted or bored, and when i came back...shells.

i assume its A) my bolivian rams B)a large bronze cory C)fem. bettas, all the other fish in my tank dont seem like good canidets.. and i had a half banded loach, that loved fry and snails..but its realy nippy, and needs its space to stake out a teritory, that it will defend its max size is 3 in i believe, had it for a year, and no bigger than 3-4 in

Awww

Sorry that I can't help

no dude_dude, unfortunatly, kuhli's don't eat snails

Umm, just wondering, would kulie loaches work

Best fish for the job is space is at a premium is Botia sidthimunki, the Pigmy Chain Loach. Stays nice and small. Is also an efficient snail eater. However, it's endangered in the wild, and until efforts to breed them in captivity produce decent results, they're pricey. If you can afford to blow a small fortune on six of them, do so, but be prepared to hunt high and low for them and pay BIG money.

As for Puffers, well some are exclusively freshwater (e.g., Amazonian species), but the majority of Puffers are nippy and bad tempered fishes that don't live well in 'standard' commuinties ... some of them also grow to be not so much large, as humungous ... some species hit 2 feet with ease!

Trouble with many Dwarf Puffers is that they are brackish water fishes that won't adapt well to a freshwater aquarium that's soft and acidic. In fact, the very existence of a special forum just for Puffers should give an indication that they are, in the main, specialised fishes requiring specialised care and aquarium setups.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

is there any fish you could suggest for my 75g community tank that would eat baby pest snails but not larger 1 inch mts?
current tank stock can be seen on my profile.

not really looking for loaches as they need to be in a school and we are already quite highly stocked for bottom dwellers wit 14 cories and 3 plecs.

IMO only Loaches will eat snails & CL's will do a great job.



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Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
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Only loaches will purposely go after and eat the snails, sorry...

Now with that said, whatelse is in the tank? I know my mbuna cichlids always made short work of any snails I put in the tank, but well they just aren't as compatible with most fish

Also I have one loony betta boy who seems to dislike snails in his tank, and makes short work of them as well...but again male bettas aren't necessarily a good community fish...

So what exactly is in the 75 gallon tank? Might help us find something to help you...

heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

sorry, slight error, its a 70g, not 75. its the one on my profile, (full stocking ofall my tanks is on there)

Yo-Yo loaches will serve your purpose well. dwarf puffers will take care of them too but I don't think they should be in a community tank.