# MTS and shrimp



## Splak (May 1, 2013)

Just looking to see where everyone stands with MTS in shrimp tanks.

I have 40g breeder tanks with HFM filtration. My tanks all have MTS and the snails get stuck in the foam and it just doesn't look nice.

I introduced them to the tanks to keep the substrate moving around, also I read shrimp eat snail poop which is healthy for them.

I just dont like the look of the snails in my tanks, so now I am in the midst of catching all my shrimp, then I am going to use snail zap, kill all the snails and do a 100% waterchange, and put the shrimp back in.

Anyone else use MTS in their tanks? If so, why? If not, why?

Thanks ^_^


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Splak said:


> Just looking to see where everyone stands with MTS in shrimp tanks.
> 
> I have 40g breeder tanks with HFM filtration. My tanks all have MTS and the snails get stuck in the foam and it just doesn't look nice.
> 
> ...


i use them in sand based tanks. helps with the anaerobic bacterial gas buildup. I started switching over to fluval stratum so i no longer see any use for them lol


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## Splak (May 1, 2013)

Kimchi24 said:


> i use them in sand based tanks. helps with the anaerobic bacterial gas buildup. I started switching over to fluval stratum so i no longer see any use for them lol


Interesting, sand I can see them being very useful. I currently use 2 bags of eco complete mixed with 1 bag of moon sand for each tank. I find that they just steal all my shrimps food and hate the look of 200 of them all over my tank! I use bacter ae for bacteria growth and I feel like the snails eat it all before the shrimp can get it.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Splak said:


> Interesting, sand I can see them being very useful. I currently use 2 bags of eco complete mixed with 1 bag of moon sand for each tank. I find that they just steal all my shrimps food and hate the look of 200 of them all over my tank! I use bacter ae for bacteria growth and I feel like the snails eat it all before the shrimp can get it.


are you heavily stocked in terms of shrimp? i generally don't feed my colony except for a piece of spinach every week. You shoudl try some spinach as it lasts longer so the shrimps would have a chance to eat. may cause an explosion of snails though haha


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## infolific (Apr 10, 2016)

I've heard too many complaints about MTS to consider keeping them. The complaints seem to always be that they breed too much. 

I use assassin snails to keep pond and ramshorn snails in check. Actually, they've eradicated the pond snails I had which I'm happy about. I'm sure I'd be free of ramshorn snails if I didn't keep getting new ones when I traded plants 

Along with the assassins, I keep nerite snails. Nerites won't breed in freshwater so their numbers will never grow. Assassins will breed in freshwater although apparently not for me. I was worried the assassins would eat them, but so far they're doing OK. However, the nerites do leave little white eggs on my driftwood which I could do without. Every snail seems to have a negative...

I have shrimp with the assassins and I've seen them cross paths. They both ignore each other.


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