How hardy are snails?

Anaxus

This space for rent!
Mar 4, 2003
200
0
0
45
Louisiana
Visit site
I accedently got a trumpet snail in my tank when I transfered some gravel from a local LFS tank to use during my fishless cycle. Currently the nitrites are around 5ppm, and I add ammonia to 5ppm. He has been in these conditions for almost a week and he seems fine and is growing. Are snails typically this hardy?
 
Yep. As many can attest, it's sometimes impossible to kill the buggers off without tearing the tank completely down.

Edit: this is not to imply that the conditions are not harming the snail. Rather, they have a rather high tolerance and won't die immediately from the conditions. Think about having a splinter in your thumb. It hurts, you don't like it, but it's not going to kill you, right?
 
Last edited:
I agree !

OnionGirl has it right. :( I noticed one of the little buggers, then two, then more and more and more. I take 2 or 3 of them out of my 10 gallon each afternoon, and they're back in two nights. I'm getting a 55 gallon, and I'll be transferring only the fish. And checking under their fins then. :)
 
Becareful if they do die though. Those things rot like you wouldn't believe, which can really be bad for your tank. You can REALLY smell it too. I agree with the above though. Most people have a problem with too many snails, not trying to keep them alive.
 
Yeppers, they are pretty hardy...I keep hearing about how hard it is to kill them without the assistance of an escargot-craving loach.
 
Salt will not always kill snails. While it's true that salt directly applied to a snail will kill it quickly, dissolved salt in an aquarium won't have the same effect. To use salt to kill off snails, I think you might end up killing off a bunch of fish as well.
 
AquariaCentral.com