Quite some time ago (a year or more) I was given a handful of Malaysian
Trumpet snails by a local fish store. I counted perhaps a hundred. Most
went into my heavily planted 20 gallon community tank, where they've
done quite well for themselves.

Quite well, indeed.

I estimate I now have several thousand, still in that same 20 gallon
tank. The tank, fish and plants are all quite healthy, and the MTS
certainly aren't hurting anything that I can see. But their population
is extremely out of control.

I can literally see my substrate (Flourite gravel) moving, almost
constantly. Especially in the hour or so before the lights go off. It
probably isn't an exaggeration to say that 1/5 of the volume of my
substrate is actually MTS.

A bit of web searching turns up clown loaches as the best 'natural'
approach to dealing with these snails. I don't expect that they could
wipe the population out, and for that matter, I don't want to wipe the
MTS out - just reduce their numbers a lot.

According to the sites I've read, clown loaches are apparently ok in a
community tank, and will grow fairly slowly.


--
Eric Schreiber
www.ericschreiber.com