Too many snails

[cschilly]

I have a problem... my tank is overrun with Malaysian trumpet snails. I bought maybe 40 of them last year I'd say I now have anywhere from 5000 - 5 million. lol.

Does anyone have any suggestions on culling the herd? I don't want to totally rid the tank of them. They seem to do a good job of keeping my sand bed aerated. I just would like to be able to see the sand that's under all those stinkin' MTS.....

 

[tmlclone]

make more friends and send them gifts XD

i read from previous post, more food = more MTS

 

[Jody]

Yes cut down on the feeding, assassin snails will help but think well well only keep them in check and it would be a long time before they eat that many. Maybe just pick and dump but i would never do it

GL M8

 

[KingKuba]

Send some loaches in and then get nerite snails instead.

 

[cschilly]

Yeah I'd like to try the loaches. In fact I picked one up today to see how it would do in the tank but I don't think it made it. I have really high pH in the tank, around 8.5. I acclimated it as slow as I could but it didn't look like it was doing too good and I can't find it now. (Tank is 130 gallon w/ 13 juvenile frontosa)

 

[Celes]

Hm...your tank is making me reconsider keeping an MTS... lol

 

[Jody]

MTS are not so bad just cant let them get out of control

 

[tunerz]

You can sell them, I know people that wants to buy them

 

[user_name]

It all depends on the tank size. Clown loaches are own of the common reccomended snail eaters, but really aren't suitable for anything except for a big tank (they get 12")

I would reccomend cutting back on feedings and adding some assasain snails. I would buy 5-10 ish, and let them do their job. You won't lose many at first, but as their population builds the pest snails will decrease in number. Eventually (1-2 year maybe) your assassains may eat all the pests.

 

[user_name]

Yeah I'd like to try the loaches. In fact I picked one up today to see how it would do in the tank but I don't think it made it. I have really high pH in the tank, around 8.5. I acclimated it as slow as I could but it didn't look like it was doing too good and I can't find it now. (Tank is 130 gallon w/ 13 juvenile frontosa)

sorry, I missed this part! What species of loach is it? I personally keep my weather loach in a low PH, I don't have much experience in a higher one with loaches. Keep in mind that loaches are scaleless, and can be killed easier by medication (even if they aren't sick). Many also prefer a low tank temp.