beginning an aquarium

Question
My daughter brought home some snails she found at school in a puddle of water. We bought a small (maybe 1 gallon) aquarium to put them in and filled it with water we had in a puddle at home. They have done well, even laid eggs that hatched. We are thinking about adding fish. What kind of fish would do well with snails in an aquarium? What do we need to do to ensure healthy fish? What kind of set up, tank size, type and number of fish, and water condition do we need? Can we even have both fish and snails together? The water the snails are in is murky and I don't like the appearance. These are obviously aquatic snails since they spend most of their time under water. Do you know if they would do well in water conditions of a freshwater fish? I will need instructions on even the basics of aquarium/fish maintenance since I am a very uneducated beginner. Thanks, Christi.

Answer
Hi Christi:  Are they small brown snails????  If so they breed like crazy. I have a snail tank which I happen to enjoy a great deal... but let me just warn you... in a month you will have 400 snails...and the month after... 3000 snails.  Snails have very little care about their water conditions... Mine live in a fish tank they I can see into and that I clean on a regular basis....so no murky water at all.  Snails have been a god-send and a curse for me. When I have baby fish and can not clean the tank they do it for me... When I don't have baby fish... I have 3000 snails.  

most fish can live with snails... though some fish eat snails like the loach family and puffers.  Snails do not like to be too warm so fish that live below 78 degrees... I would recommend that beginners start at about a 20 gallon tank because small tank sizes tend to go toxic quickly... where as tanks above 20 gallons can be quite costly....

Snails eat a lot of different things... mine enjoy some produce such as spinach but you have to remove it from the tank the next day or it fouls the water... They also like to eat the sinking algae wafers I feed my other bottom feeders.   Snails do not do well in salty water nor in water that has been treated for tropical fish disease....  There are many variety of snails to chose from... like the mystery snail or the great rams horn... all of them look different and behave slightly different.  Anyway... I hope this helps... dave