Izabela

Someone suggested that to control my evergrowing snail population I should get some loaches. I think a clown loach is out of the question in my 50G tank, but was wondering if there were other loaches that were known to be snail eaters. I currently have 3 guppies, 7 mollies, 2 Cory cats, a dwarf gourami and an algae eater.

My mollies will eat the snails once they are smashed, but I can't seem to get the snail numbers under control.

Butterfly

Loaches like to be in groups of three or more. That said let me recommend- Yoyos(Botia almorhae) , Angelicus(Botia kubotai ), Sidthimunki. I also have Skunk Loaches and while they do a good job on snails they are the "Brat pack" of loaches. They can be aggressive and mine are so they live alone in a species tank.They are all small enough to have a group in your 55G. Check out the species profiles at loaches online for other suggestions.
http://www.loaches.com/species-index
Let me warn you loaches are addicting
Carol

chickadee

The Botia sidthimunkis are absolutely adorable and so much fun to watch and I suppose the others are too except I have never seen them in action. They do eat snails but the ones I got were bought online from

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...fm?pCatId=1587

But I am also aware that they have them at

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod...itemKey=208102
(I have never gotten fish from here but did note that they have them)

The ones I got were about 3/4" in length when I received them and it took them a while before they were up to eating the snails but when they got going they did it with a vengeance. Give them a month or so to get grown up. You see a lot more activity the more of them you get. When I had 2 they were active now I have 4 and they are insane . Many evenings I take an hour and watch them instead of the TV.

Rose

skippi

I have red tail loaches, stripped botias, and clowns and they all love snails...

HEidi

Izabela

Thank you all for the help! One more question....my water is fairly hard right now, since this is what the mollies like. I think I will go with some yo-yo loaches, BUT....how will they do in hard water? Or how will the mollies like softer water? I really need to try to make this work...it's either loaches or strip the tank and start again.

Izabela

Butterfly

If you acclimate the loaches very slowly they should do just fine. Add about 1/4 cup tank water to the water they come in every half hour, do this for about 3 hours then scoop them out and add them to your quarentine tank.
ask at the LFS what hardness and pH their water is, it might not be alot different than yours.
Carol