I doubt you could removed either enough snails and eggs to clear the tank. Yoy proably need to empty it completely and then let all the contents and the tank to get perfectly dry and be that way for some time. Uou could do a chemical kill with the right stuff. What kills th snails nay not kill the eggs in the those patches.
Breeding bladder snails for assassin
- Thread starter mommy2girls!
- Start date
I am intentionally breeding bladder and ramshorn snails for my assassin snail. I found planaria was eating my baby bladder snails. So I treated for them and they are gone. Now my bladders are breeding and I’m finally seeing the babies grow instead of disappear. My next question comes to cleaning up snail poop. I have tried using a turkey baster and a mini gravel vac and even just an airline tube but the problem is I end up sucking out a million babies that can only be seen with a magnifying glass. Do I have to clean the poop or will it eventually disintegrate and be used by the hornwort floating plant? Plus the tank is still cycling. The planarian treatment crashed my previous cycle so I went ahead and cleaned everything to make sure I didn’t miss any worms. It’s on day 23 with 1ppm ammonia and no nitrites no nitrates. Figure it’s going to take a while since it’s a low bioload with sponge filter and no gravel. The equipment you can seen in the pic is not inside their tank. It’s actually in an empty tank behind it 
thank you for any advice 
thank you for any advice What did you use to kill planaria? Often what kills any inverts kills all inverts...
Your hornwort? looks happy
Your hornwort? looks happy
Well I took out all adult snails and held them for 2 weeks to make sure that I didn’t transfer any planarian with them. I then proceeded to nuke the tank with fenbendazole. And yeah it did kill some baby snails but miraculously some survived also. After cleaning the whole tank I put the snails and hornwort back. I lost a lot of the hornwort in treatment also. That’s where the planarian were hiding I guess since I don’t have substrate. That’s the plant that gave me the planarian. Not to mention it also gave me 6 snail leeches and about 2 dozen damselfly nymphs. I didn’t dip it because I had bought it specifically because it was infested with snails. About 2/3 of it has died. I’m trying to save the rest of it by feeding flourish. It’s got a few new buds. A few of the short branches are dying off still but I haven’t pulled it in hopes that it will come back. I’ve read that if even a little piece survives eventually it’ll come back. It’s a fast grower. Now that my tank is clean of all critters except the snails I’m curious if I must remove the snail poop. I know it looks icky but no matter how careful and slow I go I always end up with a ton of mini clear babies in my bowl. I’m horrified to think how many I’ve accidentally thrown out.
You can use a kitchen colander suspended above a bucket and siphon out the snail poop that way. If the babies are smaller than the colander holes, get the kind that use a mesh rather than just holes.
You can then pick out the baby snails and put them back in the tank.
You can then pick out the baby snails and put them back in the tank.
Breeding bladder snails separately is a smart idea if you want a steady food source for an assassin snail. I'd also make sure the colony has plenty of leftover fish food, algae, and a good source of calcium so they reproduce consistently and develop healthy shells. Once the population gets established, it's much easier to harvest a few at a time without crashing the colony.
This also reminds me of a similar approach people use in outdoor ponds with Algae-Eating Fishes for Your Pond. Rather than relying on one species to solve every algae issue, combining natural algae grazers with proper maintenance usually leads to a healthier and more balanced aquatic environment overall.
This also reminds me of a similar approach people use in outdoor ponds with Algae-Eating Fishes for Your Pond. Rather than relying on one species to solve every algae issue, combining natural algae grazers with proper maintenance usually leads to a healthier and more balanced aquatic environment overall.
I like the idea of keeping a separate bladder snail colony instead of constantly buying feeder snails. Once they get established, they reproduce surprisingly fast as long as they have enough food and a calcium source. I'd also avoid overfeeding just to boost snail numbers since that can quickly affect water quality. If you're breeding them long term, keeping the setup simple with stable parameters seems to work best. For anyone interested in learning more about What Do Snails Eat and how diet influences snail growth and reproduction, this guide is worth a read:
Separate colony is less hassle, but bladder snails usually need very little encouragement to multiply. The tricky part here is cleaning without hoovering up the microscopic babies.
Keeping a separate snail colony does make the feeding way less hit-or-miss. The pond fish tangent feels pretty unrelated here though, this is more about keeping enough tiny snacks from vanishing overnight.
