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Hey there!

Our tank is absolutly getting overrun with snails. When we went to purchase some clown loaches at the LPS, a lady discouraged us from getting them because they were semi-aggressive. Is that true? We have swordtails(1 male,1 female and some babies), guppies(1 male,2 small babies), some corydoras(2), and 1 oto cat. My main concern is for the babies, will they eat babies?

Thanks!
Tinfil

AFAIK, they are not particularly aggressive. However they have the potential to become quite large and they are sociable(its best to have a couple of these robust fish. If your tank is large or you plan to upgrade in the future they would be a good choice for snail removal. Another posibility is borrowing one from a friend or the store(if they will allow it).

I have also heard that applesnails will eat pest snail eggs. You can check www.applesnail.net to investigate this further.

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

They will eat fry.

as far as their growing in size, yes they do get quite large, but it takes quite a long time. its not like with most fish that can grow to their full length in 5 months.

I've had mine in a 150g for about 6 months now and I have noticed some growth, but not as much as the others

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

They will eventually get large, but as stated they're slow growers. Loaches prefer company of their own kind. If you can find them yo-yos, queens, or dwarf chain loaches are smaller and just as effective with taking care of snails.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Applesnails will sometimes eat pest snail eggs but on occasion pest snails will actually attack and kill applesnails if there are enough of them. Plus it will take forever for the adult snails to die and the applesnails will have no impact on those. A slow way to eliminate them with a few risks.

Like said clown loaches can grow big. Possibly a foot in length. It may take awhile but that doesn't mean you should cram them in a tiny tank for most of their life. They will end up stunted. Unless you have a 4' tank and are planning to upgrade further in the future your better off picking one of the smaller loach species. Aside from a few exceptions like dojo/weather or kuhlii loaches all common loaches will eat snails. They are also all social fish that prefer at least a small group of 3-4 of the same species. They'd like a bigger group than that and are more interesting to watch if you do but are extremely active so large groups usually aren't possible. I'd suggest unless you have a tank of 29g or more to skip loaches except to maybe borrow one for a couple weeks and look to other possibilities for snail control. Usually having lots of snails is a result of overfeeding the tank. No food means no baby snails so I'd examine your feeding routine and how much food the fish are actually consuming versus what the snails are cleaning up. 2nd you can bait the tank with a leaf of lettuce or take a plastic container, add fish food, punch a few snail sized holes in it and leave it in the tank overnight. Those 2 things will cut down on the population alot.