Snails taking over a tank is pure nonsense to me. They can reproduce quickly and in large amounts, but everybody always makes it seem like once they have numbers you can't control them! Like their tiny little selves are stronger than you. Put your hand in the tank and squish them, or take them out. I kinda like them, they don't kill fish, they only eat dead ones. They also keep the tank clean. Also if you have cichlids they can be used as a food source.
Originally posted by sman91wing Snails taking over a tank is pure nonsense to me. They can reproduce quickly and in large amounts, but everybody always makes it seem like once they have numbers you can't control them! Like their tiny little selves are stronger than you. Put your hand in the tank and squish them, or take them out. I kinda like them, they don't kill fish, they only eat dead ones. They also keep the tank clean. Also if you have cichlids they can be used as a food source.
Exactly. I really hope the population of aquarium people aren't becoming so worried about snails... Its like discovering you've got some ants in your kitchen. its not the end of the world, deal with it
The problem is that they CAN take over a tank. Yes, they don't hurt anything, but they can be an eye-sore, if you will. They also make a lot of poo and some eat plants. I had some snails devour an entire clump of grasses in...I dont know...two days.
I had a picture of a 55g that was OVERRUN by MTS lol. So many. Needed to be thinned down. You could hardly see through the glass but the picture has been removed from the server.
I think its pretty darn near impossible to have a planted tank without snails. They end up in there one way or another unless you religiously potassium permangenate your plants. I like my snails
Just don't overfeed, squish eggsacs if need be. Use the lettuce method or the algae wafer in a shot glass method.
I don't like the look of them and we fought a severe snail outbreak for 5 months in our 55 gallon before giving up. We would kill/remove at least 50 snails per day and never seemed to get ahead of them, they were reproducing under and inside decorations faster than we could get them out. we stopped the hunt after deciding to set up a puffer tank. A couple weeks ago we set up our puffer tank and discovered our snail population has all but disappeared. I attribute this to controlling our feeding better. We just went to petsmart and gathered a bag of snails to start a 1 gallon colony for feeding the puffers. 4 puffers eat a lot more snails than I ever imagined. KYle
WOW, 50 snails, screw that, I only see one right now. I pulled him out before it can reproduce, i hope. There may be more, but not really sure.
If i see some more I will get a clown loach to eat them, i dont now about a puffer, or if there is even a freshwater puffer, or if a puffer would get along with my fish.
