Snail problems

[Yanagi]

I meant to ask at the SBG but forgot. One of my tanks has, to put it lightly, a massive snail problem. The substrate is almost more snail than gravel and the snails eat the sinking pellets quicker than my bristlenose and corydora can. Is there any way to kill these horrid things without killing my fish?

[fishbites]

I HATE SNAILS!!! Well those damned trumpet snails and ramshorns that breed like flies!

Don't use snail killer from the LFS - it contains copper and can kill your catfish. The best way to rid yourself of the snails is to syphon out all the gravel and throw it away - clean down the walls of your tank thoroughly and make sure any eggs are removed. Dip your plants in a condys crystal solution for 15 minutes to kill off any snails on them then rinse them. Put new gravel back in your tank and set it up again. Make sure the filter is washed thoroughly as snails can get in there and lay eggs - you can also dip the filter in condys crystals. Hydrogen peroxide (from the pharmacy) will neutralise condys crystals if you want to be sure its all out of your filters. Pretty drastic but leave one snail alive and you'll have a thousand (except for the nice snails like the mystery snail)

Hope that helps

[Chuckie]

or every night, put in a slice of zucchini. The snails will swarm all over it. In the morning, take it out.

You'll want to save some for your betta spawning tanks though ... :)

[Yanagi]

Argh, given that I don't want to go to such extremes, I'll try the zucchini. Is there such a thing as putting in too much zucchini? I think I'd need to put more than one slice in because of the sheer numbers, they reproduce too fast.

I did do the gravel method when my other tank had a snail invasion a few months ago but this time around I don't have a spare tank to put my kritters in, so that would be quite problematic. Especially since this is my most populated tank as well. ^_^

[fishbites]

You could always try a few loaches - clowns or yo-yo loaches seem to have a thing for snails and might assist speed up the zuchinni method.

[Chuckie]

I don't think you can put in too much zucchini :)

[hobbygodz]

Hi Yan, are these the little guys that you are talking about? http://www.bettatude.com/Snails/pond-snail1.jpg I have these in all of my tanks and I find their populations to be quite manageable. The trick is to get the population down to "a manageable level" and then maintain it as follows; Lisa's zuchini trick works a treat, only leave it in overnight as it can cloud the water. Lettuce leaf works very well also. I remove any snails at or above the waterline whenever I see them there as I believe these are the ones that are laying eggs. Loaches will eat them also (all of them), but they will only be "happy" in a group of at least four. Clown loaches are totally passive towards all other fish but they really need to be in a large stirred tank of 150L+. They make loud "clicking" noises at night, so if you are a light sleeper don't have them in a tank in your bedroom. Steer away from pakistani loaches as they will grow to be territorial monsters and are known to attack the gills and mouths of other fish.

Seeya, Brad.

[dreaming_frog]

i awoke to many of the suckers in baby form in my tank today and i have no idea where they came from as nothing has changed lately.. luckily they seem to all love my air line and were in one spot. stupid snails. i hope they didn't lay eggs..

[Yanagi]

Hi all, just returned from the Aquarium (post about their awesome Betta to come!). I put the idea to my dad about getting clown loach for population control and moving them into his 4ft when they were done and he didn't like that idea at all but wanted more clown loach anyway so we went and got 4, and 4 silver mollies. I also picked up some more plants for my sorority.

So I have no choice but to either buy another tank, dump the gravel in the current tank or try zucchini. I have tried lettuce before and while it did work to help control the population, my new BN now eat it down to almost nothing in no time, so that was essentially useless (the BN would disagree). Hpefully zucchini will take them longer.

I honestly don't have any idea what they are, some look similar to the pond snails, but there's also some with gold shells, lighter, darker, different patterns, etc. I try not to look too close, snails creep me out.

I do scoop up any near the surface and remove any eggs I see (they lay them on the glass above and below the water and everything in between) but it's just not enough.

The population in this tank started with ONE snail that managed to lay eggs before I could get rid of it, I just washed close to 50 down the drain, and that was only what was in and on the pvc tube. Kill them while you can, dreaming_frog! :fish:

[Chuckie]

that gets me thinking - what would be the best way to dispose of unwanted, removed snails? I like mine, so have never had the issue, but washing them down the drain might not be ideal, in case they get into waterways (?? ) - any other ideas?

[Becki]

Ive been known to squish them between my fingers and them wrap in tissue and pop in bin, That's only when I have a huge population explosion.

[Yanagi]

I throw mine in my dad's 4ft or the goldfish pond. One way or another, they get eaten. I hadn't thought of them getting into waterways. Duh, I should have, they can certainly survive some terrible conditions, oops. I found one alive in a drip of water beside my tank once. Ugh.

[Chuckie]

Eaten is good :)

[Anasfire]

I have a tank overrun with Malaysian trumpet snails and I often scoop them off glass of my tank with a net and leave the net (turned around at the top once or twice so they can't crawl out) on top of the tank until they've dried out and died. Then it's a simple matter of tipping them out into the bin.

Often if I forget to turn the net around I find them crawling out and falling back into the tank within a few minutes.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Fighters4U

[fishbites]

Those trumpet snails are tricky things - even when you thing they should be dead from drying out they come back to life! Somehow they must seal themselves off really well because I've found them in tanks where I thought I had dried out the gravel for weeks before using it again (now all gravel containing these things is dumped rather than get them back).

Maybe I just don't trust those pesky snails! LOL

[Yanagi]

Yeah, I had just one survive my gravel washing and drying for a week treatment. Luckily I got it out before any eggs were laid.

We apparently don't have any zucchini at the moment so I used some lettuce last night, got maybe 20-25 snails out. Going to need a lot more than that!

[fishbites]

only another 25000 snails to go!!! :)

[Yanagi]

:) Oh man, I rearranged some of the new plants and while I was at it, collected all the snails off them and off the glass. Popped them in my dad's tank and WOW the new clown loaches went nuts.

Also, my dad's love affair with clown loach has been revived and next weekend he wants to get another 4, 2 of which will be on clean up duty in my tank until they either get too big or the population is gone. This would mean nine clown loach in a 4ft tank, only one of which at mature size, the rest are about 2 inch at the moment. That seems a bit much to me, opinions?

[fishbites]

Nine clown loaches at mature size would be a bit much in a small 4 footer but if it was a 4x2x2 it could handle it. Good to hear you have a couple for snail patrol - any snails big enough for them to such the meat out of will be history hopefully! Keep a watch on the glass for any snail eggs and get rid of them before they hatch too...

[Yanagi]

The tank is 4ft x 14in x 18in. I really have no idea how fast clown loach grow but I expect our original one would die of old age before our new guys got to his size.

I don't have any clown loach in there yet, he won't break up the current school so I have to wait until next weekend if/when we buy more. lol I think I'll try to talk him down to just two, but he's so stubborn, his opinion is the only one that counts.

My snails are more prone to laying eggs on the driftwood, on plants, in the filter and pvc pipe vs places where I can actually find and destroy them before it's too late. It makes such a mess of the water to pull those things out and clean them. :(

[Yanagi]

I have two Clown Loach on clean up duty in my tank, they've been in there since saturday and already bigger than the 6 in my dad's tank. The substrate is looking more like substrate now, rather than a snail gathering. These days I'm barely scraping two snails off the glass a day. Scraped off 3 batches of eggs off of the glass in the past 2 days though.

I've also been taking out the smaller pieces of driftwood once every few days and scraping the snails off that and feeding them to my dad's much larger clean-up crew.

I'm very very pleased with the loaches lol Oh if only they didn't grow so big. I want to keep them forever and ever and give them hugs for getting rid of the snails! :dance:

[Chuckie]

Glad you're having success with a biological control! :dance:

[fishbites]

When they get to 30cm long they will be big enough to give a real hug to!!! LOL

Great to hear your snails are reducing - keep up the scraping and removing and they'll be under control before too long!

[redfin538]

Hi Just wondering if any one ever heard of salt?? I heard this rumor once that salt plus snails/slugs/leeches if freshwater or land varieties will = dead snails/slugs/leeches of course ive NEVER done such a thing myself *fingers crossed behind back for this blatent lie*lol

beer/vinegar (mix with water spray on garden*may harm some plants) / copper coin in jar of water (w/ tight lid) that you can dump the snails in are also ideas.

Hope these old ideas are of some help

[fishbites]

Salt water will kill freshwater snails - but then again - it will kill fresh water fish too! Just a small amount of salt in a tank (for medicinal reasons) never seems to stop the snails here....

Copper will kill snails - it will also kill loaches and some catfish so be careful - knew a guy who lost 100 peppermint babies due to residual copper in a tank a few weeks ago :Drunk_Buddies2: