Question on cleaning with snails

lorindaleigh

lorindaleigh

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Jan 24, 2009
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I just got a beautiful piece of driftwood from someone here. It was covered in baby snails, which I loved. I've been wanting my snails. I need to do my every 3 day gravel cleaning today (last stage of cycling) How do you siphon your gravel without sucking up the baby snails?
 
I'd hover the siphon at least a few inches away and disturb the substrate a little to make the detritus float away into the vacuum. That's how I do it although I can vacuum with ease now since my snails are already pea sized. I'd put the babies in a breeder box temporarily until they reach pea size. Makes tank maintenance easier.
 
Thank you! I'll do that tonight. I don't think I could find them all. They blend right in with the brown gravel.
 
What kind of snails are they? What I would do is keep your hand on teh siphon tube and keep a close watch, if you suck any up, pinch off the flow and they will drop out.
 
I just suck up the gravel, when a snail goes in I just stop the flow and they come floating down :lol: I think they like the ride.
 
I have the simple solution, and the more serious solution. The simple solution is what several folks suggested. Just keep an eye on the influx of water and stop the flow long enough for them to drop down.

If you're worried they're too small to see, here's what I do with my shrimp tank.

I take a 6 foot long piece of airline tubing, and using a broken q-tip, I shove some filter floss into the airline about an inch. This does two things:

* Slows the flow so much that a snail or shrimp with any life in it at all can avoid it if they want.
* Prevents them from being sucked in all the way.

I examine my filter floss when I'm done cleaning, and make sure nothing itty bitty is stuck in it. If it is, I just float the floss in the tank where someday I'll surely pull it out, but it currently serves as a float for my pond snails.

This has a disadvantage -- you don't actually suck anything up but water. That's ok for a while, but occasionally the substrate needs some vacuuming. You can plant heavily, and the stuff on the bottom will become fertilizer, or you can occasionally sacrifice a snail or shrimp baby to the cause and vacuum normally. If you vacuum into a bucket, you always have a second chance to look for babies that snuck by before you toss it.
 
you can tie a pantyhose over the end of the drain tube and it will catch any of your baby snails and when your done you can easily look and see if any snails got trapped in the pantyhose filter you ran your water thru. my friend gives me her ripped/snagged white pantyhose and its very easy to spot them.
 
I did the hoover above and stir method. Worked perfectly. I did pick up 2 but I tilted it to the side and they dropped right out before they even went halfway up the tube.
 
I find the tube pinching works well, but isn't fool proof.

To save the snails that fail to 'fall out' I just let the container I syphoned into settle down. Then I drain down to a couple of inches above the 'muck.' {More or less, depending on the size of the container.}

Let it sit over night. In the morning you can collect the snails off the walls of the container & pop them back into the tank.

Then you just have to decide if you want to keep all the eggs they laid in less than 12 hours!!!
 
i just keep my thumb near the end of the tube of the gravel vac, and when i see baby snails in the tube, or any fish that is getting a lil too close to the vac, put thumb over end of tube, baby snails fall back into the tank, and the fish that dare venture near are 'scared' off by me wiggling the gravel vac a little in their direction.

and then there's my oscar that likes to pretend the gravel vac is the enemy, lol, and bites it every chance he gets!
 
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