shells in filter....

tbarblover

tbarblover

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May 19, 2005
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connecticut
I wasn't sure where to post this so I am going to post this here. I have a 55 african setup with crushed coral/marine sand mix as my substrate. I was cleaning out my xp2 filter when i noticed about 5 or 6 shells at th bottom of the canister box. The shells were twisted going from a small point at the bottom to quite a bit larger at the top at which point there appears to be an opening. Also the shells varied in size with one being smaller than a ladybug and the two largest being about a half inch in length. I dont believe they could have been sucked into the filter because of the strainer on the end of the intake and also it is "crushed" coral. Has anyone else experienced this or know what this is?
 
They are probably malaysian trumpet snails (The other MTS). I have them in my tanks and am constantly cleaning them out of the filter. Here is a picture of MTS to compare your shells with.
Bug_S96.jpg
 
those look very similiar........although i didn't see the snail themselves.....is there any way to get rid of them and where do they come from?
 
tbarblover said:
those look very similiar........although i didn't see the snail themselves.....is there any way to get rid of them and where do they come from?
Click to expand...

They are pretty useful snails. They stay burried in the gravel during the day and come out at night and eat algae and leftover food. The only problem is sometimes they get inside the filter and can get stuck in the impeller stopping the filter. I'm not sure where the ones you have came from. Do you have any plants, or did you get used gravel from someone? If you really want to get rid of them, You could put a piece of lettuce in at night and pull it out in the morning with the snails.
 
I'm not sure where they came from either.....I bought all the substrate new in bags.....maybe they were introduced wometime when I added new fish.....Anyway, thanks for the help.
 
slightly off topic but i bought some plants for my cold water tank the other day and found 2 snails in the weed then about 3-4 weeks later i got 7 snails..only very small but weird

seems they breed easily
 
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