Another pest snail thread

[Optimus]

It has been a while since I've been on here due to work and life in general being crazy but I have a pest problem and I figured I'd come and ask for some advice...

About 4 months ago I ordered some plants from a seller online (ebay) and got these little flat snails appearing about a week later. I tried a chemical treatment and while it did kill the majority, like most pests they soon returned to full force to the point where last night, I pulled out about 30 that had emerged once the lights went out. I want to be very clear on the following: I do not over feed my fish. My feeding regime is so particular that if I over feed and food is left on the gravel I'll siphon it out so that I don't upset the balance of the tank. But through researching I found that even if you have no alage visible the snails can still feast off of the light algae film which is invisible to the naked eye.

I don't want to add a new/aggressive/species and was wondering what advice you guys could give. Also there has been some debate as to whether assassin snails will eat them due to their size. The pests are roughly half-1cm in width and are flat. While looking for a good image I found this pic (hosted on this forum btw)

The above is the closest representation of the pest. Small, pink/clear-ish shell. The main difference between them is that the pest I have seem to stay in their shell more and have don't seem to have tentacles. I'm sitting here hoping assassins will work in this predicament because while I know some people don't mind their pest snails, I really want to be rid of mine...

 

[sora1600]

Looks to be a ramshorn snail. I used to have a lot of them in my tanks but don't have anymore. I either put in a veggie for 24hrs then take it out as the snails are usually on the veggie or manually take them out whenever I see one or the eggs. That's how I got rid of them. Assassin snails did not work for me as they preferred the food I was feeding the fishes.

 

[captmicha]

I'm not sure I understand why you started another thread on this topic when you obviously knew there were already so many.

The answer is the same as in most of those other threads. Just like Sora said, use food as bait to remove them and introducing livestock to kill them off isn't reliable.

 

[cobfreak]

I took about 50 ramshorns out of my 20 Long the other day when I completely re-did the tank. Higher light, mineralized topsoil, little bit of DIY CO2. While I was at it I pulled out a lot of the ramshorns from my 55 gallon, too. I kept all of the ramshorns from both tanks in a plastic container with some old plants and tank water, because I'm a packrat and didn't feel like throwing them away.

Three days into the new tank setup the plants and glass were getting covered in diatoms, hair algae, and some other type of algae. I also noticed an increase in algae in my 55 gallon. I spent a while trying to figure out why my 55 gallon was showing more algae all of the sudden... as if the new tank syndrome from the 20 had spilled over into the 55. Then it hit me: ramshorns?

So I did a water change and put most of them into the 20 long again. The tank has no livestock aside from those snails, so I figured at the very least they would cycle it if it needed it.

I also put about 20 back into the 55. that night I got a picture of a trail through the algae being cleared on a leaf in the 55 gallon by I single ramshorn.

Two days later and ALL of the algae from the 20 is gone. The 55 looks better again. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not a cure-all and I still clearly need to tweak something about the tanks (probably not enough CO2 in both cases, but I've yet to shell out for a pressurized system.) But they are really, really good at cleaning up algae and leaving plants alone.

Just my two (or so) cents.

 

[excuzzzeme]

Yes, they are ramshorns and yes, they can live off the bio-film. Short of nuking the tank, then next best is to trap them.