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Will loaches eat shrimp??? specifically clown loaches... I want to take care of some snails but not at the expence of some shrimps!

There are no dumb questions. Only bits of knowledge that you haven't yet learned.

Yeah, CLs will make pretty short work of most shrimps. You run this risk with any of the Botiine loaches.

There are two non-fish options of dealing with snails (well, there are three if you use a chemical snail killer, but you don't want to do that because it will also nuke your shrimp).

First: take away their food supply. Snail population explosions are a sign of over-feeding. Cut back on the feeding and the snail population should decline.

Second: Place a leaf of lettuce or some cucumber in the tank overnight. In the morning, it should be covered in snails. Remove and repeat until the snails get smart enough to not be on there in the morning.

Out of curiosity (does it bother anyone else that "curiosity" doesn't have a second "u" in it?), why do you want to get rid of them? In most tanks, they're not harmful in any way. I mean, if they're eating your plants, I can understand, but otherwise they won't really hurt your tank. Just don't like the sight of them?

what would you consider to be an over population of snails, joe???

My own definition for snail overpopulation is when the snails are actively harming the tank in some way, be it from eating plants or the potential stress on the bioload from a massive dieoff. I have three species of snail thriving in my tank. They leave my plants alone, and, frankly, I like the little buggers.

Other people's definition depends on their own preference. Some like 'em, others hate 'em.

I just really dislike the hard shelled burrowing ones, the bubs cause little routed ruts in my impeller and housing as they go through the filter And the pond ones, they are forever leaving slimy bits everywhere and chomping greenery.

I tried CLs with snails, they were pretty disinterested. I ended up sieving the sand with a fine net and keeping it under control that way.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Your messing with trumpets though. The only way I've found to get rid of trumpets is a long round of chemicals. Nothing eats those suckers. They're like rocks. Once you put them in a tank you are stuck with them unless you strip and throw everything away. Even soaking stuff in bleach hardly kills them unless you leave them there for a few weeks. I've had them still come crawling out of decorations dumped in bleach for a couple minutes.

For the usual pest snails(pond snails) most any loach would eat them or you can squish them, bait them, etc... to steadily lower the population pretty easily. Smaller loaches with large shrimp sometimes works. I had yoyos with ghost shrimp but clowns will eat all shrimp and small shrimp like cherries or rainbows will likely be eaten by most loaches.

looks like my babies (shrimp) are going to force me to use only the cucumber method joe potato suggested... this whole 4 year break thing really does a number on your memory... callatya were you on this forum in like 02-03 time frame?

True. It took me 3 rounds with bleach and then 3 hours in the oven with the substrate to kill em off. Most annoying was that I purposely introduced them in the first place. Work great with gravel, lousy with sand!

What about just getting bigger shrimp? Apparently the long armed shrimp will pick off snails and eat them (they'll also pick off your fish too though...)

Yup, joined in 2001. Were you under the same name then? I totally agree on the memory thing, I've been out of the game and just plodding along for this past year or so and it feels like I've just emptied out the fish section of my brain! You have to be so involved to keep up! It really is use it or lose it!



For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

no I think I used either the_fish_keeper or shaggy_5150... those were my two that I used online so im just guessing it was one of them... I ran across teh site trying to find info on shrimps(wich werent big when I was tinkering) and recognized it... but I remember the site being bluer I think

Actually doradids eat snails, several species including the legendary irwini, the queen of snails catfish and the common bacu can probably eat a half pound of snails a day. Not suggesting anyone take on such monsters, but there are lots of much smaller species available, all will take snails, in fact they have a plate in the roof of the mouth specifically for crushing them.


I used to have snails everywhere, puffers (no good for community though) dealt with one tank, and the doradids (chocolates and whitespots) dealt with all the others. In 9 months, in tanks with heavy planting, and over 1000 gals of combined water and kilos of bogwood, the doradids did the job on all the snails, young, old, and eggs alike. All species of snail were eaten. If I get snails in on new plants, they last a week , tops.

Loaches dont remotely match up to doradids on the snail eating front. Doradids are also commonly peacuful whereas many of the botias can be fin nippers of almost any species they are housed with. Doradids though, have to be sized sensibly, as they will swallow small fish whole. Loaches and doradids with both usually take shrimp, but it depends of course on the size of the mouth.A shrimp bigger than the entire head of either a loach or a doradid will most likely not be in trouble. Preferences for taking shrimp also depend to some extent on the individual.

I remember a shaggy! Gosh that was ages ago!

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

well in that case... I'm flatteredlol