I dont remeber buying snails...

[Martyerd]

So I'm taking the top off the tank to clean out the filter tube which had a lot of debris in it from the live plants. As I was looking over the condition of the plants i noticed little rocks on top of my newly inserted plant from petsmart. Turns out these are not rocks but two pebble sized snails. My guess is they hitched a ride into my tank? Should anything be done? Is this a problem or just an unexpected newcomers to my tank?

[nderouch]

Put a piece of lettuce in the tank overnight. in the morning snails will be on it and you can take it out.

[The Zigman]

the snails arent necessarily a bad thing.
if you dont want them yes, the lettuce (or cucumber) trick above will work.

If you do want to keep them, you really dont have to do anything...
they'll eat the dead plant matter, and help tidy up your planted tank.
both of my planted tanks have snails, and I have to problem with that.

[FL22]

I honestly like pond snails. Even though they are asexual and will take over your tank if given a plentiful food source. If you don't mind them, I would keep them around. Just make sure you don't over feed:)

[msjinkzd]

I find common snails to be a great gauge of maintenance, overfeeding, and plant health. They can only readily reproduce wiht a food source. If they are reproducing rapidly, they are eating something in your tank that shouldn't be there (dead leaves, uneaten food, or algae). I squish them and feed them to my fish as well to help control the population.

[Martyerd]

I don't really "Mind" them being there. I just didn't want to come to work and find my tank overrun by snails.

[Martyerd]

What do they look like when they reproduce? I see lots of little lines on one of the plants and wanted to make sure they where not an army of snails!

[msjinkzd]

They will lay eggs in little jelly-like sacs. The baby snails will hatch and be the size of a pinhead initially but grow quickly.

[Martyerd]

I'm pleasantly excited about finding a new source of life in my tank that I did not even mean for it to happen. Nature is cool! :)

[excuzzzeme]

I'm pleasantly excited about finding a new source of life in my tank that I did not even mean for it to happen. Nature is cool! :)

I have to agree with that! I love it when I find new fry in one of my tanks. I don't breed guppies, I just let nature run her course. When I find them I rescue as many as possible and enjoy raising them. The same goes with my convicts.

[Martyerd]

Ack! I think I just found 3 more snails in the tank... thats about 5 now! Heh, might have to do something about this!

[Martyerd]

Make that 7. I just pulled up my rock formation to find 7 little snails! I have them in a container for right now.

[malken]

squish a few for your fish. It's a well known fact that snail meat is a universal delicacy in the home aquarium.

Right now I have two unidentified snails in my main tank. I spotted them originally as little specks and now they're almost big enough to have names.

[Martyerd]

I took them out and placed them in a covered cup and put some of the aquarium water and a dying plant in with them just to give them a little place to stay for the weekend. I figured I would wait and see if I got them all or if there are more waiting to grow large enough for me to see them. I'm not really sure how I feel about squishing them. There is a pond out by my office I might just let nature run its course with them there. I don't mind them being in the tank, but I don't want to come to work one day to find over 20 of them!

How do you guys normally feed them to the fish? Tweezers? 0.o

[msjinkzd]

I honestly squish them in my fingers and drop them in the tank. its a frenzy

[Lucky]

I'm not really sure how I feel about squishing them.

Me either, but I squish babies so often on accident... it's not that bad any more, haha. More like "...Oops, oh well." The fish do like them, though - my neons went nuts when they found one I'd squished.

[thebullit]

just squish them against the glass, escargo hmmmm..