Snails, hard water, and plants

The snail population in my 29 gallon aquarium continues to rise and I am increasingly worried about this. As I have mentioned in my build thread/journal, I am ethically adverse to killing snails unless absolutely necessary (or unless for a source of food for something else; see below pea puffer question, which puts me in a bit of a bind. In addition to a mystery snail and nerite snail (both of which I bought), the tank has somewhere between 30-80 ramshorn snails, trapdoor snails, and pond or bladder snails. There also are a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails.

My water is heaven for snails, about 240 TDS, 8.0 ph. I feed relatively little for the fish (12 CPDs and 1 endler) and shrimp (neocaridina and amanos), but the tank is heavily planted and I am almost positive that the snails are feeding off of the plants (lots of holes in the swords, wisteria, crypts, and vals) and also decaying leaves. I.e. I cannot stop snail growth simply by feeding less because 1. I am feeding a reasonable amount and 2. total available food for the snails= fish food +plants/plant matter +whatever algae there is as opposed to fish food alone. On the good side, all those plants and the low stocking mean very low nitrate, about 3-5 ppm nitrate a week after water changes (I change water every 7-10 days); I am happy that the large snail population is thus not appreciably affecting nitrates. Finally there is very little algae in the tank despite 10-12 hours a day of lighting.

Even at present, and despite the holes in leaves, I like the snails overall and would be happy if the population leveled off and remained at roughly its current level. But since there has been a steady increase since the tank was established three months ago, I am worried about what will happen if this increase continues for the next 3, 6, or 9 months. So my main query is what other's experiences have been with planted tanks, hard water, and snail populations. Will there be leveling off of the population at some point? Or does the availability of plant matter and the water hardness basically mean that the snails are enjoying life and the population will continue to increase？

The only options I can think of if I do take action against the snails are: A. Buy a pea puffer(s). I really like pea puffers, but I am worried about the shrimp (and to a lesser extent the CPDs), and this would mean that I would need to return the mystery snail (my favorite tank inhabitant actually) and the nerite; B. Buy loaches, though from what I can tell there aren't great options, especially given the hard water and relatively small tank size. C. Buy a 5 gallon tank and use it as a 'snail tank'. But I shudder to think what my wife will say. Thoughts on these or other options are also much appreciated, and thank you very much (recent tank shot below).

 

Three months isn't very long. I'd expect the populations to level off at some point.

By the way, you said you think the snails are eating plants, but I doubt very much that the snails you mentioned are eating healthy plant material. They will happily eat decaying leaves. If there are holes in the leaves it's more likely due to some deficiency in your water.

 

Three months isn't very long. I'd expect the populations to level off at some point.

By the way, you said you think the snails are eating plants, but I doubt very much that the snails you mentioned are eating healthy plant material. They will happily eat decaying leaves. If there are holes in the leaves it's more likely due to some deficiency in your water.

Thanks for both the reassurance re the snails and the comment regarding the plants! I will post some pictures soon of the leaves to see what everyone thinks.

 

Could you be overfeeding? Aquariums are closed systems and those nutrients must be coming from somewhere.

I had a lot of mts in my betta tank until I started rinsing the frozen food I give it. That with a few extra water changes and the number went down, altho I did remove some of them.

 

I also believe that the snail populations will stabilize over time. I actually have soft water but still snails seem to breed rapidly at first in a new tank, but later settle down. I also agree they don't eat healthy leaves. They are more of a benefit than a problem. I do feed a few to my larger cichlids though.

 

Could you be overfeeding? Aquariums are closed systems and those nutrients must be coming from somewhere.

I had a lot of mts in my betta tank until I started rinsing the frozen food I give it. That with a few extra water changes and the number went down, altho I did remove some of them.

I'm actually worried that the snails mean that I am underfeeding the shrimp (though I think most likely I am neither overfeeding or underfeeding)--since the snails and shrimp both feed on the 1 spinach leaf and 1/4 of an algae wafer (or two shrimp pellets) I would ideally like to put in the tank per week for the shrimp, I have stopped with the spinach leaves.

I am glad to hear that others experience has been that the snail increase stops/slows, and I will watch and wait. Thanks to all for the reassurance/advice! If anyone else, especially anyone with a similar setup and hard water, has thoughts, I am all ears.

(As a bit of an aside, I'm not entirely sure that the 'closed system' analogy completely captures the complexity of an aquarium. Aquariums are in a sense closed systems, but IMO an asterisk/addendum needs to be added. In any aquarium, but especially in a fertilized planted tank, and even more so in a dirted planted tank such as mine, the amount of the total closed system available as nutrients/food can vary greatly, especially if photosynthesis and the resulting plant matter (or at least decaying matter) is taken into account. In other words, we can all agree that if my aquarium were in the dark and unplanted with the same dirt-capped-by-sand setup, the only available food for snails that don't burrow would be the food I put in. But clearly my tank has quite a bit more in food/nutrients available (plants, decaying plant matter, whatever algae there is) due to the light. I think a takeaway from this is that I might want to follow the holes-caused-by-nutrient-deficiency idea down the rabbit hole to see if I can fix this--perhaps nutrient deficiencies are creating hole-filled plants that then provide additional opportunities for the snails to nibble around the hole edges?)