we have three apple snails that we purchased to help with algae build up. we don't seem to have luck with plecos. we had a pleco even go after one of our large comets in the past, and latch onto him because they like the slime layer on goldies.
we've had snails in the past, they are large, the size of a large marble, so they are too big for the fish to eat, but the snails i have read prefer tropical tank temperatures. we don't have a heater in our tank. our tank is whatever the room temp is which ranges throughout the year from 65-78 degrees.
we had the snails in the tank for about a week, and i thought they were dead because they didn't move, they didn't come out of their shell. so i moved them to a bowl in the kitchen, and i've been feeding them lettuce and they seem OK. we since learned our tank was sick with high nitrites and low pH and so we've corrected that problem.
i guess what i am trying to ask, is does anyone have any success with apple snails in their tank? they are cool looking little buggers. i thought snails were vegetarians, so they shouldn't hurt the fish. if anything the fish might go after the snails because my goldies are like dogs, they want to eat all the time!!!!!
any thoughts?
thanks

I've got three apple snails in my 29 gallon. My goldies just ignore them but not all goldies are like that. I have a comet at home that always picked at one of my snails so I had to seperate them.

you will always get one fish that likes to pick on the snail from time to time and snails do eat a type of meet algae

I love the little guys. I have two of them in with my 2 goldies.
Don't worry, yours will thrive in your tank if you have correct conditions for them.

Firstly, they don't like cold temperatures so that's probably why your guys were in a type of hibernation state. They do this when the temp gets down to below 18°C/65°F.

They will also be one of the first creatures in the tank to let you know that you have bad water. They may try to climb out, or again go dormant. It's great that you have your water parameters under control now. What is you PH at now? They really need it at a level of 7 to 8. If you have soft water you can add calcium to the water which the snails need to grow and repair their shells.

Don't worry about your snail attacking the fish. As the guys said it's usually the other way round!! Your fish would need to be very ill and unable to swim much for a snail to damage him. Even when asleep a fish will quickly dart away if a snail even brushes of it.

Snails are mostly vegetarian but will very rarely say no to a bloodworm, fish food, and other insecty type foods!

I think you might enjoy a little roam around the website
http://www.applesnail.net/

Go to the "care" section and you can't go wrong. You'll find out more about your shelly friends there.

Enjoy them!

Yup. Ditto all the above.
My snail lives with my three goldies in a 46 gal tank. My experience is that they like the tank around the mid 70's - if the temp dips below 74 they start to become less active. Also, they say they eat the algae but not to the extent that they'll clean the tank for you, unfortunately. They LOVE zucchini cucumber and squash in thick slices, but scalded a bit so it's soft. I stick the food on lettuce clips so my snail can 'get on' rather than chase the food round the tank. Keep an eye on the PH as their shells will deteriorate without sufficient water hardness.
My last snail was afraid of the goldies and closed up whenever they approached whereas the new one seems undeterred and just keeps on moving - so I guess it just depends. Some of the larger snails do have a carnivorous bent but assuming you have Brigs the fish'll be fine and like Kila says a fish has to be pretty sick to get caught by even a carnivorous snail.
Enjoy your snailies