Mystery Snails

[Agia Saloli]

I've received my 29 gallon about a few months ago. My cousin set it up for me, and it's been doing perfectly fine. Well, about a month ago, I noticed I had a snail. I emailed her about this, and she said they never bought any snails, neither have I. Since then, another has appeared. They're very tiny, and seem pretty harmless. But last night, 2 more smaller ones appeared. If they're bad to have, I'll get rid of them, I was just wondering how on earth snails came into my tank.

I also do not have any live plants.

 

[Marinemom]

Do you have live plants in the tank? Often times tiny snails can hitch a ride on the plants that we put in the aquarium. What color are they? Most likely they are the kind that you do not want. They breed all the time and make a nuisance of themselves. You can have a tank overrun with snails in no time. If you can, find out what kind they are and if they are like the snails that I suspect, than you will want to get rid of them. Hope this helps.

Marinemom

 

[bobandfiona]

marinemom, or anyone who knows...what do you mean by the color can tell if they are the bad breeding kind? I have 4 snails i bought puposefully for algae control, one black, two yellow, one white...who's bad? what can be done if they breed nonstop?

i can't figure out if there are no live plants how you can have snails unless one of your fish had some eggs on it when you bought it. maybe it was in a tank with snails or live plants?

 

[Marinemom]

The bad snails are an ugly brown color and seem to multiply almost overnite. The good snails do not seem to do this and come in a varity of colors. I have a blue mystery snail that is a great little worker on keeping the algae under control.The ugly brown snails do not do anything for algae. If you want to remove them you can do so manually but when you take them out of the aquarium do not squeeze them because before you know it you will have even more of them. They are hard to erradicate, but just be persistent with it and you can get it under control.

If no live plants are in the aquarium they can also come in on a new fish. They can be so small that you don't see them right away. Basically anything wet it can be transfered on which includes substrate from an established tank and some inverts as well. If you add plants to the tank I would recommend rinsing them in water and visually inspecting them before you place them in the tank. Even after this, you can still miss them and they end up in your tank anyway. The way I keep my planted tanks under control with this problem is if I see a snail, I immediately remove it and it never gets a chance to take over my tank. I hope this answers your questions and if you have more questions, just post and I will try to help you.

Marinemom