Snails, Plants, and Tank Questions~!

[bettafish15]

I'm looking into getting some snails for all my tanks, my bettas are looking a tad bored, especially the two in their 5g's. The website I'm looking into ordering from has only malaysian trumpet snails, and red ramhorn snails. I only have sand in one of my 5 tanks. Which one would be better? Could both co-exist? Any care tips? I havent had snails before.

Now, for the plants. All my tanks have flourescent lighting. I'm mainly looking to stuff the two 5g's with plants, so they have the Marineland Hex 5 flourescent light that came with them. These are my options of plants, since I can only order from this one website:

Red lotus, Banana plant, Creeping Jenny, Hygrophila - sunset, Hornwort, and Vallisneria.

Which of those could I get, do you think? I know all my lights are decent (esp. the two 15W in the 14g).

Any advice is appreciated! Sorry for the long post! :P I really want to order these things as soon as possible.

[bettafish15]

Bumping this because I really would like some input~ <3

[darkangel216]

From my experience with malaysian trumpet snails, they can live in any size tank. Just be aware that you will eventually have a lot of snails since they can reproduce by themselves. I would think they would be fine in a tank with sand, but I could be wrong. Hopefully someone else will chime in soon.

As for the plants, I think the ones you have listed will be fine in the tanks as long as they have proper lighting. You might also want to look into ferts to help them grow better.

[N03113]

MTS are perfect for sand and encouraged. Sand, if not properly stirred here and there can build up pockets of toxic gas. MTS will naturally dig through the sand for nourishment.

While they do multiply easily, they are bound to what nourishment is provided for them. Unlike pond snails, they will not reach a population of grand proportions unless you overfeed. "When food is plentiful, they multiply. When food is scarce, they stop multiplying. Thus, your tank will eventually reach a point of equilibrium, where you have just enough MTS for your tank, and no more. They will rarely reach plague proportions unless you heavily overfeed your fish. "

If they get to be overbearing, you can always get an assassin snail which will feed off the population of MTS.

MTS is great for algea control, won't uproot plants, and they'll eat hair algea which some other snails don't.

Snails and Bettas are hit and miss - depends on how agressive your betta is. Best way to introduce is to remove during a water change, acclimate snail first, and then re-introduce betta into tank. Re-arranging the decore a bit helps during that time. MTS will hide beneath the substrate - don't confuse adding a snail as a means to cure betta bordedom.

[bettafish15]

I know they are great with sand, what I'm saying is that majority of them wont have sand, they'll be in tanks of gravel. I know they wont cure the boredom, but it's something. I'll be getting live plants with the snails and some cholla wood too. None of my bettas are aggressive, so no worries there.