snails snails everywhere!

[sand critter]

We bought a live plant about a month ago, and apparently there were some snails in them....they are now multiplying and our tank is infested with them! There are hundreds of them, and even though we are flushing many everyday, we wake up to see just as many as the day before! What can we do to get rid of these eyesores....which are also destroying healthy levels of everything!!!:confused:

[BigFishDude]

Clown Loaches, Cloawn Loaches, Clown Loaches, and more Clown Loaches. These guys will have that tank cleared of snails in no time!!!

[PumaWard]

Dojo (Weather) Loaches, bettas (or similair labyrinth fish), or figure eight puffers... It all really depends on the size of your tank and the kind of fish you have in it. One of my tanks used to be infested with Ramshorn snails, however, they almost completely disapeared when I recieved four spike-tailed paradise fish and my dojo loaches.

[TKOS]

Make sure your tank is big enough to hold those fish. Clowns get big. I would just make sure that you rwalize why there are so many snails. Rams Horns generally don't eat healthy plants. They like deteriorating plants. Also overfeeding will cause more snails.

I would suggest the tried and true lettuce leaf in the tank at night and throw the leaf out in the morning. It will be covered in snails.

If you have any bottom feeders then pre crushing the snails and letting them sink is a tastey treat. My cories love them. Just had some a moment ago. Big smiles on their little whiskery faces.

[RTR]

http://www.aaquaria.com/aquasource/snail.shtml

HTH

[OrionGirl]

Agree--you must treat the problem, not the result. There is a huge food source available for the snails, or they would not be reproducing this fast. Everyone on my tanks is planted, and the only time I get an abundance of snails is when I deliberately over feed. Rather than getting a fish to eat the sanils (especially something as large as clown loaches, or as nippy as dwarf puffers), cut back on feeding--every other day will work for most adult fish just fine. Give the substrate a complete cleaning. In a few weeks, I'm betting your snail population will be in decline.

[SnakeIce]

yes but if there were enough egg cases it can seem as if they are reproducing fast cause the babies are not as noticeable and as soon as you take the bigger guys out there are more to grow into that noticeable size from what I have expirienced

clowns are not the only loachy way to go. I have botia rostrata and I hear almorhae will do the job as well and these are both under 5 inches max

[SnakeIce]

I know the frustration. my wife opted to not get a fish to control them and she ended up completely breaking the tank down(to move it incidently) and washing the gravel and bleach solution treating the plants and she still takes a few snails out each week but it is no where near the numbers she had

the rate of multiplying also depends on the snail. apple snails very slowly and if you do yay, common pond snails abit faster but if you have the rams horn shaped snails they can reproduce at a extremely small size and large snails egg cases can have several thousand in it so if you get one in on plant there can be a population explosion

[Dangerdoll]

I added a few skunk botias (loaches) that took immediate control of my snail abundance.

[RTR]

IMHO, if there is a snail population explosion, the odds are near 100:1 that the tank is overstocked, improperly stocked, overfed, improperly fed, undermaintained, or some combination of those. Snails require food. Aquarists provide food.

I have two dozen operating tanks. All but puffer tanks have snails. I have no snail explosions. I have to have snail tanks and feed them heavily to support puffers. Snail explosions are self-inflicted injuries.

[TKOS]

I have snails in all my tanks. And they are all planted and I have no major snail problems. Yes, there are plenty of snails but they do not hurt my plants to any major degree. My betta tank had to snail I purposely placed in there. One died during an unfortunate gravel vacuum incident. The other is growing nicely. But since I feed my betta a small amount of food once a day there are no other snails. I even have a snail tank that I used to keep for dwarf puffers till they all dies. I feed then veggies once a week, yet they do not touch the live plants and they have no exploded in population.

Snails genrally lay their eggs on plants IME, and this may also be why you see them so often on plants. Not necessarily eating them. The ones on my plants surprisingly rarely damage any of the leaves.

[carpguy]

Its never a bad thing to try to address the root causes. If your heavily overfeeding you maybe setting yourself up for other less obvious problems.

But if you want a snailkiller, I'll vouch for some of the smaller botia loaches. My crypt bowl (no fish, no food) supports a half dozen or so snails. I've never seen a single one in my 30g, and while I'm not really a heavy hand I'm sure I could feed less and not lose anyone. 4 skunk loaches and a b. histrionica. All no more than 3 inches, top out at maybe 4.

[SnakeIce]

you are forgetting one reason the snails will explode in pop.
if you have plants and they are not doing the optimum you can have none of the fish related reasons and still have lots of snails

[TKOS]

Yes. Snail are opportunistic creatures. Eating healthy plants is a lot more work than eating one that is decaying or in the process of dieing.

[carpguy]

I like the little fellers in the crypt bowl… they keep it tidy and their numbers stay small. My point was more that snails can exist in a tank thats not being massively overfed or mismanaged.

"Hundreds of them… even though we are flushing many everyday" kind of suggests that there's a good bit nutrients in there going unused by the intentional population, but I can see how a good number could reside in any tank.

Comparing the bowl to the tank, I'd guess it could support several dozen just on the ordinary mulm and plant debris. Never see 'em… must be the loach patrol.