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They have all plants submerged, a tank full of swords, assorted sword
plants. pots of variegated acrocus was submerged too. I figure leaves
for those should poke out of the water to breathe for the acrocus.

I also went to PETCO and bought their little tube packaged O. Japonica
Kyoto, I got home and found it was a land plant, it's going back
today.

They also sell the black mystery snails so I guess the snails eggs
might be that variety? Are little individual black dots on the plant
snail eggs?

I am running a 20 gal barrel outside, the snails probably won't bother
me if they chew on the plants a bit as I don't get a good view of my
plants most of the time. But I kind of want the type that would rather
eat debris and clean things up, thinking of getting a couple of their
black mystery snails what do you think?

I don't know what to say about the black mystery snails but I must say I am
not regretting holding off from buying some clown loaches to eat all of my
pond snails and the reason why is that my pond snails seem to do exactly
what I want them to do - clean up and not eat the plants. Now mind you -
they do eat dead plant matter and when I introduced them to my bedroom tank
by putting a ton of hornwort in with them on it and I didn't dip the
hornwort to get rid of the snails the pond snails ate the dead hornwort
matter that died when my water conditions weren't good enough for them and
the newer smaller hornwort that grew from it has grown some and the snails
don't seem to be eating any of it. The pond snails that spread to my silver
dollar tank don't seem to be eating any plant matter either and surprisingly
my hornwort I introduced to that tank is growing like crazy which is great
as that is exactly what I wanted. I would have said it's because I feed the
snails "sort-of" by putting in spirulina pellets but I only do that with my
bedroom tank and not the silver dollar tank which is doing just as good so
that explanation is out the window too. I must have misunderstood Elaine a
few months ago because I thought she recommended (any loach?) I try some
loaches to get rid of the pond snails when I was wary of them and so I
bought 5 kuhli loaches (which I love despite the lack of them cleaning up
the snails even by my previous standards) and they grew and I see 1 once a
week or so but they don't seem to eat any of the pond snails at all. I am
not at all upset at Elaine because it was my mistake and I even don't
consider it a mistake because kuhli loaches are so beautiful and unique.
Bottom line - you will probably have to buy a group of larger loaches
(clowns probably) to have them eat all of the snails if you decide to try
snails and then change your mind. There is some beauty there as most if not
all lfss will accept any sellable fish as a donation or for store credit so
if your tank is too small for a number of grown (there is some leniency on
specifics) clown loaches you should be able to return them to the lfs after
they have done their job. I haven't done that for two reasons - I love my
pond snails so far and I don't live close enough to an lfs to pick up clown
loaches quite yet and I don't think I'd be able to return them if I got them
through online or mail order, except for getting them to the lfs. Good luck
with making your decision, and take your time making it. Later!