In our 29 gallon fish tank we have 3 Cori Catfish, 4 Spotted Catfish, 4 Black Skirt Tetra, 6 X-ray Tetras and 2 Zebra Snails.
The Tetras just swim around and do nothing to clean up the tank.
The catfish clean up the bottom of the fish tank however they don’t clean everywhere and algae were taking over the tank. Zebra snails were introduced to the tank as temporary guest workers to help do the job that the other fish were not doing. Snails do a phenomenal job in removing algae off rocks and glass. The literature for the snails indicated that reproduction within a home fish tank is rare/difficult so one shouldn’t worry about an uncontrolled population explosion of snails.
Several months later 50+ small white orbs began appearing clustered first on the faux log and castle. In the subsequent months that follow more and more grouping of orbs were growing throughout the tank.
An illegal snail invasion had begun and no part of the tank was immune from this attack. Anchoring eggs were ticking time bombs and if 2 snails could produce 50+ eggs then how many more eggs would the 50+ snails produce?
The first wave of undocumented snails began hatching. The tiny snails were soon gliding from one tank corner to the other – over rocks, in logs and on the glass. This abundance of migrant algae harvestors seemed unstoppable until the law enforcement arrived and immigration policies were established.
The catfish discovered the snails and found them very delicious. Each new snail that foolishly exposed themselves away from the protective crevices of the rocks were quickly consumed by the tank immigration officers and a balance was reestablished.
The present tank is generating a higher volume of algae than 2 snails can clean up. The tank master has 2 options:
1) create a sanctuary zone within the tank where the immigration policies don’t exist such as a floating fish birthing cube to allow snails to reach a size where the catfish can’t attack or
2) Remove the catfish (law enforcers) from the tank.
What is a master to do? Depends on if you biased towards the fish or the snails. One will be the loser…..