save the snails?

cellodaisy

cellodaisy

AC Members
Jan 11, 2009
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Cincinnati OH 45219
meganstrickland.com
Perhaps this is a weird question... but I have a snail problem, and not the usual kind.

I have regular ol' pond snails in all of my tanks, and I don't mind them a bit. The population hasn't exploded and they're actually kind of cute. My problem is that I almost always get a bunch in the water change bucket when I gravel-vac and I really, really don't want to flush them. (I'm okay with my turtle eating them because that's a natural thing, but death by flushing is not.)

So far, I've been letting the bucket sit for a few minutes so that they have a chance to latch on to the sides. I scoop out the ones I can see and put them back in the tank, then I try to pour the bucket out gently so the snails can hang on and I can scoop out the rest. I know that I can't save them all, but I would feel terrible if I didn't even try. This process is time-consuming and tedious, though, and I'd love to find a better one.

Is there anyone else who has this problem and DOESN'T want to flush the poor little things? What do you do?
 
Mine get into the siphon and just hang out in there and I hate it. I don't have any tips for you, but I also rescue any that make it into the bucket. You're not the only one that values their little lives.
 
Perhaps rest the end of your hose in a colander or large sifter like this within your bucket. Lift out and empty your bucket... you may need to pluck out any large debris that may have gotten caught with the snails. Or set them into a bowl of tank water and manually pluck out the snails to return to your tank.
 
I have this exact problem as well! It's so nice to know I am not the only person obsessed with saving little snails! lol... I try to run the water through a big fish net before it flows into the bucket, but that gets precarious and despite using various clips and ties, I have yet to come up with a stable system to avoid spills. I really like the lint sock idea!
 
what i do is take an empty fine mesh media bag (like the ones you would use for carbon) and elastic that snugly to the end of the gravel vac hose (end that goes into the bucket), making a bag of sorts. you will catch all your snails this way, including the itty bitty ones. yes, you will catch debris as well, and the mesh bag will need to be slipped off the end of the hose a couple of times during a water change to clear out the snails and debris. have a container of tank water set aside and just inside out the mesh bag into it and swish it around. pluck off cling on snails.
 
I have a piece of window screen rubber banded around the end of my siphon. I take it off when I want to suck up bigger particles, but I leave it on if mostly I am just interested in changing water and getting the smallest bits of detritus!

I've never had trouble with flushing pond snails (I can avoid them) but MTS are a different story. If you ever change out your substrate, you will have millions of baby MTS (Malaysian trumpet snails) which you can't do anything with. I let the water sit, pick out the ones I can see, then I have to dump it outside :( I know it's sad, but the way I see it it's not that different from the worms and bugs that get sacrificed when I need to dig out compost. The tiniest ones are as small as the tiniest sliver of gravel, so there is just no way I can help it...and it doesn't do a bit of good to feel guilty ;)
 
A 5 gallon paint strainer ''bag'' is great for this. Easily found at hardware stores.
To all; please be careful about releasing these into your waterways.
 
Yep..when I did the bucket thing, I had the collender sitting on top of it. I would sometimes suck out snails and small plants like moss and such.

When I switched over to jugs...I use the small fish nets and just place them over the openings.
 
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