Bioload on Mystery Snails? Tank gets dirty fast!

[MonteCarlo]

Hi, I'm starting up a 10gal planted tank, but until I plant the 10gal, I have all four of my mystery snails in a 2.5gal tank with some floating plants in it. I know its small but I only plan to keep em in there for less than a week.

Their tank gets messy so fast, I pretty much have to vac/do a 50% change everyday. I could get away with 2-3 days but it gets unsightly. I have no substrate, so you could really see how much waste they produce, and its ALOT for just snails. The ammonia really builds up after a day, and this just scare me b/c its not like a 10gal is THAT much bigger than the 2.5, especially since Ill have more bioload with fish in the 10gal.

Are they supposed to be this...dirty for just snails?

[Juicebox]

your meant to have 2.5 gallon per snail, it is known they do they produce alot of waste,

a 10 gal is actually bigger in terms of water volume,it helps dilute the waste and a filter will help alot too, also youll have live plants,they will suck up some of that ammonia and they will help keep the water clean


4 snails will be your limit in a 10 gal,you should not put any fish in there also, maybe you might get away with 1 male betta if its heavily planted but that would be it..

you should look into shrimp,they have small bioload and will help clean up some of the waste from the plants

[Silverfang]

4 diffusa apple/mystery snails are about the limit for a 10G tank. They poop more than any other fish I've seen.

[Elsewhere]

I recently added one of these guys to my tank and OH MY do they poop! I'm cleaning up the tank almost every day now, upping 30-50% water changes to twice a week instead of once a week!

[MonteCarlo]

cant believe petsmart has about 15 of them in one ten gallon tank...sheesh

[CrazyFishDude]

Originally Posted by MonteCarlo

cant believe petsmart has about 15 of them in one ten gallon tank...sheesh

I used to have two of them in a 2 gallon jar a long time ago... Guess how dirty the tank got in 3 days after putting them in...

[Silverfang]

you should see a Cana then, they need about 4 gallons per. And they will INHALE plants, then crap it all out all over the tank... phew.