My tank is overrun with plant snails I'm not sure that to do... What will eat them or kill them?
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snail help?
- Thread starter elliriyanna
- Start date
Please explain your stocking and feeding routine. If snails are overpopulating, you are overfeeeding.
I have two kissing gourami's and a betta ( the kissing gourami's are being moved to a forty this week) and two oto's I feed once a day its a ten gallon tank. at the end of the week it'll be once a day feeding plus algae wafers every other day for the oto's and the kissing gourami's won't have snails in their tank. I think the filters are too powerful but by friday it'll be one in tank ten gallon filter. Setting up the forty has made things complicated lol.
I "FIX" all my snails with clown loches.3 will be enough for 10 gal tank. Don’t feed any food for one week. Ottos and betta will be OK without food. I have 8 ottos and one betta in my 40gal high tech tank. They are doing very good without food more than 5 months. Loches will eat everything for no time. After 10-15 days you tank will be snail free. After that you have to feed loches or sell them. Now I have 5 snail free plant tanks.
don't add critters to fix problems! especially not 3 clown LOACHES (sorry, i'm a stickler for correct spelling) in a 10 gallon. when there are problems in the tank it is up to us, the keeper, to fix it and not the job of the creatures living in the tank.
weigh a piece of lettuce or cucumber down with a fork in the tank just before lights out. when you go to turn the lights on again, you'll find a number of snails on the lettuce/cuke. remove lettuce/cuke. keep doing this with a fresh piece until you see a decrease in the snail population.
you can also manually remove them by hand. squishing them against the side of the tank will create food for your gouramis, and possibly the betta.
as for your feeding, try cutting down to once every second day while battling the snail over-population. a snail 'outbreak' is almost always due to overfeeding the tank. try feeding less, as much as the fish can eat in a couple of minutes and no more.
weigh a piece of lettuce or cucumber down with a fork in the tank just before lights out. when you go to turn the lights on again, you'll find a number of snails on the lettuce/cuke. remove lettuce/cuke. keep doing this with a fresh piece until you see a decrease in the snail population.
you can also manually remove them by hand. squishing them against the side of the tank will create food for your gouramis, and possibly the betta.
as for your feeding, try cutting down to once every second day while battling the snail over-population. a snail 'outbreak' is almost always due to overfeeding the tank. try feeding less, as much as the fish can eat in a couple of minutes and no more.
With the filter being so powerful ( currently 70 gallons so it cycles the filters for the forty) the food gets whipped around ... I'll decrease how much I feed and also do that lettuce trick 
. Thanks
. Thanks
I had a ramshorn problem in a couple of my tanks and have used the cucumber method to clear them out. Works wonders.
Wow ... I'm special... I don't know why I never thought of just turning off the filters *facepalm* I'll just do that and I've heard bottom feeders would love the cucumbers too... Is that a good thing or does it not matter?
and I've heard bottom feeders would love the cucumbers too... Is that a good thing or does it not matter?
