Ramshorn Snails? Yes/no?

Okay, I have been on the fence about these snails for like the whole summer. I really love them and I think they would be awesome at helping balance my tank, but I also have a huge fear of a population explosion and out competing my nerites for food. I heard you can control this by how much you feed and I don't have a community tank so I feel like maybe I could control them?
I have three in a breeder box right now, eating some melting plants for me. Release or toss?

Tank info:
20 gallon long
1 betta
7 nerite snails (plan on getting three more, recently added four)
Freshly planted Water Sprite (aka melting and coming back)
Temp is a steady 80F
DIY CO2
Fluval 20 filter filled to the brI'm with sponge

I dose 2mL of Flourish, 3mL of Calcium, and 5mL of Blackwater three times a week and I have been able to get away with monthly water changes. Going to test parameters on Sunday.

 

I think it's probably fine to mix them, their population will grow, but if it gets too big for you put some up for sale on the BSTF or aquabid. I doubt they will out compete nerites entirely, from what I see they go more for decaying plant matter and nerites go more for soft algae and biofilm. Ramshorns will definitely go for that as well, just not as much in my experience

 

You’ll likely be fine. I really like the red ramshorms.

 

Okay good to know, I really do enjoy watching them and I want to simulate a pretty natural environment because ya know, you can't keep pest snails out of nature.
I'm pretty sure one of them is a leopard ramshorn, it's very beautiful.

Here is another question, because of how many nerites I have/plan on getting, I will be supplementing their diet with zucchinI or cucumber or things like that once a week. Will I see a population boom from having in a slice of veggie for two days? Then decline when I pull it out?

Here is a pic of them btw

 

IMO, I would much rather have these pests in my 40G than the ugly gross pond snails, which I now crush or catch for my puffer food, catch if able to but they are sneaky little buggers, so most get crushed and do not even feel bad. I even bought Assassin snails which I think are too small at the moment for pond snails and I have my population down to almost none after a bleach soak of all plants, ornaments, and quadruple or more vacuuming/moving around the gravel. I like the Ramshorn's but I do not know how I would feel if they were covering the sides of my 40G, so for now I am afraid to introduce them into my 40G.

 

Yeah I gotta say, ramshorn are probably my fav pest snail. They just look so cute and have pretty nice shells. I really like to collect shells so while I am working at PetSmart I always collect any dead snails I find and keep the shells. Bought some red racer nerites just for the shells lol

 

Anyone else have any opinions? I still have them in the breeder box, been stuffing melting plants in there for them to clean.

 

I've had 2 entirely different experiences with them, the first lot I picked a few up out of someones pond (it was full of them), then culled all the browns and just kept only reds, which were cool for a while but then they completely took over my tank -nothing would get rid of them, I removed all the ones big enough to pick up, but the smaller ones became half of my substrate lol and even the babies seemed to be reproducing, I even tried a chemical snail killer and that didn't work (just made them go dormant for a couple weeks) but killed some of my fish instead (I now know of a much better brand so keep this in mind).

The second lot, however, were pink and blue colored ones (although I'm pretty sure the only difference was their color / bloodline), they breed slowly, don't take over and are 100% awesome -I would highly recommend them I had some in a tub pond at my parents house and they actually almost died out, maybe due to goldfish eating the babies? I found 1 large one that was the only survivor and put in my shrimp tank, where the numbers are now steady, but certainly not out of control.

I know there are 2 different species (P. DuryI and P. Corneus), although I can't tell which is which, or if the ones I've had were all the same species. I can't find out much about them -I'm trying to find out if they can interbreed as I have some various ones at the moment in a separate tank as a color breeding experiment.
So my best advice would be, look at where they came from -were they in a tank full of snails, or a tank with just a few?
If there was just a few, chances are they'll breed fairly slowly and not get out of control, but stay away from ones that come from an overpopulated tank or pond, it means that lot are fast breeders!

Also, if you do end up with a problem, there's a product called 'blue planet snail rid' that actually works Just remember to remove your nerites for the duration of the treatment, and until you've done a few large water changes after. I'm not sure if it's shrimp safe so you'd need to check if it's ok to use with whatever else you have in your tank, but it does work as far as killing snails goes

 

Forgot to say too, they do best with eating left over fish food (much nicer shells and they grow to full size), so if you're still keeping them separate you might like to give them some fish food too once in a while.

 

I think ramshorn snails are pretty cool. I bought 5of the blue ones on line. I had a problem with diatoms in my 55 gallon for about a year. I tried the blackout and other measures but nothing worked. I had given up on fixing this. Shortly after I got the snails my diatom problem cleared up. I know the credit goes to the ramshorn. Also they have no problem climbing up to get at the plants to clean them like most of the other snails do. Super cleaners but yes you will have to find a fix to control their population.