snail attack
- Thread starter garydp
- Start date
What food are you feeding your fish? Normally, unwanted snails come in on plants or with fish that have been added to the tank. They do multiply when a tank is overfed, but I have never heard of them coming in with food. Cutting back on feeding usually helps cut down the numbers, manually removing them also helps. Depending on what type of snail, you may not be able to eradicate them.
Do you have pictures of the snails?
Do you have pictures of the snails?
hello and welcome!
you will get more help (more people will see the thread) by posting this in the general freshwater section of the forum.
you will get more help (more people will see the thread) by posting this in the general freshwater section of the forum.
Snails are your friend... they do good things for the aquarium. Clean algae, excess food, etc.
... but they can be a bit unsightly when their population booms out of control. The usual advice from people with snail problems is to cut back on feeding- most people frown on adding other creatures to take care of a problem.
I'm going to break the norm and suggest you consider adding something.
Depending on if you have anything that might eat them (big fish will- and some smaller fish might) - I'd recommend Palaemonetes Ghost Shrimp. (unless you have a trumpet shaped snail- in which case they won't help).
Why?
1) Very little bioload... adding them won't make you overstocked...
2) They're awesome little creatures. I love my shrimp.
3) Many people have noticed a direct correlation between having ghost shrimp and snail population declining... 3 reasons:
i) Occassionally you'll get a female ghost that learns to eat small snails. (never seen a male do this though). All of them will eat the freshly hatched ones though.
ii) Even if they don't- they're faster than snails and can out-compete scavenging for excess food.
iii) THEY LOVE TO EAT SNAIL EGGS. This is probably the biggest reason why egg-laying snails never seem to overpopulate tanks with ghost shrimp in the tank.
Now- if you've got a trumpet shaped snail- it's most likely a live-bearing kind and you're out of luck- they're almost impossible to get rid of. Almost nothing eats them- they can survive any conditions and the breed like mad. You have to manually remove them- but you'll never get them all.
Bladder snails have gone extinct in my tank- I can't maintain a ramshorn population either- but Quilted Mels (similar to Malaysian Trumpet Snails) breed like crazy.
... but they can be a bit unsightly when their population booms out of control. The usual advice from people with snail problems is to cut back on feeding- most people frown on adding other creatures to take care of a problem.
I'm going to break the norm and suggest you consider adding something.
Depending on if you have anything that might eat them (big fish will- and some smaller fish might) - I'd recommend Palaemonetes Ghost Shrimp. (unless you have a trumpet shaped snail- in which case they won't help).
Why?
1) Very little bioload... adding them won't make you overstocked...
2) They're awesome little creatures. I love my shrimp.
3) Many people have noticed a direct correlation between having ghost shrimp and snail population declining... 3 reasons:
i) Occassionally you'll get a female ghost that learns to eat small snails. (never seen a male do this though). All of them will eat the freshly hatched ones though.
ii) Even if they don't- they're faster than snails and can out-compete scavenging for excess food.
iii) THEY LOVE TO EAT SNAIL EGGS. This is probably the biggest reason why egg-laying snails never seem to overpopulate tanks with ghost shrimp in the tank.
Now- if you've got a trumpet shaped snail- it's most likely a live-bearing kind and you're out of luck- they're almost impossible to get rid of. Almost nothing eats them- they can survive any conditions and the breed like mad. You have to manually remove them- but you'll never get them all.
Bladder snails have gone extinct in my tank- I can't maintain a ramshorn population either- but Quilted Mels (similar to Malaysian Trumpet Snails) breed like crazy.
i'd reccommend taking a small plastic container with a lid (some sort of ziploc containter), drilling a few holes (big enough for the snails to get into), and fill it up with lettuce. I did this, let it sit, let the lights go off for an hour at night, and then pull it out. They are drawn to the food, seeing as how they are nocturnal.
If you are very frustrated you can crush them with your fingers(pond snails)and feed them to your fish