The Puffer Forum

I have an abundant supply of algae growth in my aquarium, so I decided to transfer the majority of my ramshorn snails from the breeding tank to my freshwater, angelfish tank. I just recently bought some small amazon sword plants and a kyoto grass plant. I was wondering if they eat the healthy live plants or only feed on the dead, decaying plants? Also, I was wondering, if they do happen to eat live, healthy plants, would they leave them alone due to the abundant source of algae in my tank? And when I say abundant, that is pretty much an understatement, there is so much algae in my aquarium right now, and my upside down catfish just can't quite cut it alone, he needs some help

Thanks a bunch for the advice/replies!!!

Ramshorn snails are supposed to only eat decaying plant matter, and leftover food. I've never had any problems with my ramshorn eating my plants, although I'm not sure I can say the same about the Apple snails.
Get some Otocinclus for your algae problem, if it's brown algae, or get a Bristlenose Plec, they are good at taking down algae.

Ok, I found the answer to my question. And might I add, I was quite wrong as to the type of snail I had.

Turns out the snails I do have are the Malaysian Trumpet snails. After some research I've found that these are probably the best snails to have in an aquarium, ESPECIALLY a planted aquarium. They DO NOT eat live, healthy plants at all, they only feed on the dieing leaves of them. Also, they eat the algae (as any snail does) except they do what most snails don't and that is, they airate the gravel which is really good for the tank and the live plants in the tank. Also, I read that unlike the normal snails (which are the ramshorn ones) they keep your gravel looking clean which is great because I have white rocks which at the moment are brown and green and ugly looking. People actually try to get these snail into their aquariums because they don't destroy live plants and are great algae eaters and great for airating the gravel, and keeping light gravel...well light...instead of dingy.

Just don't feed MTS to puffers- the shell is too hard for them.

They breed like crazy too. I hate the buggers.

Yea I heard that if they start to take over the tank too much that if you put an old carrot in there or a piece of lettuce that the next morning there will be a ton of them on it and you can just get rid of it. When I had my puffers I gave them some MTS's before but I didn't notice anything wrong with them and I didn't know they were too hard for them. What can they do to puffers?

The way the shells are spiraled makes them super hard, they can break a puffer's teeth.

OH WOW! I did not know that. Well, all of my puffers have died off now so thankfully I don't have to worry about the MTS's. How many puffers do you have? I used to have 3 GSP's until I put an algae killer in there and it killed of the good bacteria with the bad and my tank kept on mini-cycling (which I was unaware of) and they died

Sorry to hear about your puffers :[ Are you planing on getting more?
I currently have 4 GSPs in a 120 gallon tank and a Monotrete Turgidus in a 29 gallon tank.

Well, I'm not sure I want anymore for a while, even though I thought they were fairly easy to care for, I'm just going to stick to my freshwater angel fish for now. Besides, I love angelfish and have always wanted them, however I was unaware of how BIG they get. I saw one at the pet store that was as big as a car/truck steering wheel!