Battle: 8 Gallon Planted (snail problem)

Please don't add salt to your tank.

I've also seen a shot glass or small clean drinking glass in the tank with an algae wafer inside. The snails will be more visible on the glass, and should accumulate in the cup. I'm sure some shrimp & fish will nibble in the dark, but you should see at least some snails in there as well. A glass bottle may work, but I'd be worried you'd end up catching shrimp or fish & not be able to get them out. :)
 
Try a piece of meat. I bet that'll bag you more snails than lettuce. I have those tiny snails all over the place too and whenever I drop meat in my tanks as a treat for my shrimp/fish, they snails cover it like a blanket.
 
I use the tubing from a gravel vac to suck them out individually. I put my finger over the end going into the bucket and let it flow when I right over the snail. Takes a while to get them all but with persistance and patience you'll reduce the population. Also works for small ramshorns and mts.
 
While changing water last night, with my 3 year old son watching/helping, I realized the situation is beyond baiting and capturing... these little tank terrorists are more ingrained in my tank than I originally thought... and my original thought was the situation was bad. My decision was made before I even started the water change last night.

The situation without extreme measures has been determined to be untenable.

The following is classified Top Secret, Compartmentalized, do not disseminate:

The pond snail invasion poses a grave, clear and present danger to my aquarium. At 1400 hours on March 17, 2011, I, as the Chief Executive Officer of my aquarium, issued "Executive Aquarium Keeper Directive 1811" (via aquabid and paypal)... I'm sending in the Navy SEALS of the invertebrate world... Assassin Snails.

The Team of 5 highly trained anti-terrorists were notified of their orders and began deploying from their base in Southern California... presently, according to shipment tracking, they are staging in my mailbox... gathering their gear and honing their skills... going over the operation plan letter by letter.

Their objective: to eliminate the invading terrorists through use of targeted, surgically precise strikes carried out with prejudice.

I will follow-up this announcement with updates in the days to come. For now, "we" must realize that despite the swiftness at which this operation will be conducted, that this will be a lengthy battle.
 
Okay, I have an idea. Your water conditions are obviously conducive to good snail health. So take out the livestock and put them in a temporary tank. Now, change your water quality. Drop your kh, gh, and ph for a little while. Your plants should be fine but the snails's shells will start to dissolve and the snails will perish.

And it's not like your poisoning your tank with copper or anything. It'll be perfectly safe to put your livestock back in when you change out the water.
 
captmicha said:
Okay, I have an idea. Your water conditions are obviously conducive to good snail health. So take out the livestock and put them in a temporary tank. Now, change your water quality. Drop your kh, gh, and ph for a little while. Your plants should be fine but the snails's shells will start to dissolve and the snails will perish.

And it's not like your poisoning your tank with copper or anything. It'll be perfectly safe to put your livestock back in when you change out the water.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice... although I don't have a second tank big enough to house my critters (my 2nd tank is a 2 gallon RCS grow-out tank).

Either way, its too late... I had to make a command decision... the mobilization has begun. Death to the "infidels"! LOL
 
You can make a 'trap' for the snails. Take an empty disposable water bottle and cut the top third off. Clean the inside and out well, then put the veggies inside the bottom two thirds of the bottle. Finally, invert the top third and push it into the bottom, so it is stuck. Now put it in your tank. The snails will go in, but have a hard time finding their way back out. You can easily remove the bottle, dispose of the snails, replace the veggies, and capture more. Don't let vegetables rot in your tank.

This won't solve your problem, but it will help. Personally, I don't think that snails are a bad thing.
 
Yeah, why don't you just ignore them and cull them if they're getting too numerous? I don't pay any attention to mine. I used to scoop them out and feed them to my turtle (RIP).

If you have a steady supply of snails, maybe you could venture into the world of fresh water puffers?
 
Thanks for the additional advice and suggestions... in the event I do want to do something else with the pond snails (puffers, etc.), I've taken about 10 of them out and placed them into my RCS grow-out 3 gallon tank... I did that awhile ago and they're breeding in there too! LOL

Update: Assassins have begun to work. Over this past weekend, I have 2 empty pond snail shells right in the front of the tank alone... I can only assume there are other empty shells elsewhere in the tank.

BTW: Assassin snails are pretty nice looking critters!
 
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