Snails in the filter-good or bad?

[Burbotman]

So, I have started adding plant to my moderatly stocked tank last year. The plants have done well (Wisteria, Java fern, Jave Moss and Swords) however about 6 months ago I picked up a snail problem.
Snail control has been a challenge even with my team of assasin snails, water change time is also snail crunch time.

Here is the thing, my filters are on a 16 week cleaning cycle, staggered 4 weeks per filter(w/c are 40% weekly). I just opened the fx 5 and expected to find the typical heavy brown mulm in the filter. What I found was a very clean
filter with a healthy snail population in it. Ditto when I opened up the 405 and ehiem 2217.

It appears that the snails are eating the detris in the filter???

Any one have experiance, thoughts or opinions on this? Really I am wondering if snails could be beneficial or not.

Water parmeters continue to be in line

 

[aquaponicpaw]

Nothing but beneficial. The snails are breaking the decaying matter down more. The only pitfall is if a shell comes in contact with a moving part.

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[Burbotman]

Nothing but beneficial. The snails are breaking the decaying matter down more. The only pitfall is if a shell comes in contact with a moving part.

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That is what I was thinking, the difference in the filter condition was incredible.

 

[Redearsunfish]

Nothing but beneficial. The snails are breaking the decaying matter down more. The only pitfall is if a shell comes in contact with a moving part.

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This. agreed. I love snails.

 

[BIRD_MAN]

Same thing happened to me in my FX5 after I added java moss lasted for around two months then like magic they all dissapered!


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[Redearsunfish]

Never underestimate the clean-up power of snails!

 

[Jer]

Same thing happened to me in my FX5 after I added java moss lasted for around two months then like magic they all dissapered!


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I like the all disappeared portion of this statement. I've always been paranoid to add them as I had snails in a tank many many years ago and even though my cichlids seemed to love them I couldn't ever get rid of the stupid things.

 

[anarekist]

i think it has it's drawbacks, like if your filter was barely keeping up with your stock, the snails might be enough to overpower it since they also create their own waste products that your bio filter needs to break down as well. on the plus side i agree they do break down the larger decaying matter. esp if you have plants.