Snail Problem

[JEGuerra]

SO I have a 75 gallon tank with a good stock of tropical fish and plecos, I had a seperate tank with guppy grass that, unbeknownst to me had snail eggs in it, and they multiplied QUICK, and somehow, spread to my main tank(the 75 gal) and although I tried my best to pick them out, I just couldnt keep up and now they are like a plague on my tank. Any advice for getting rid of these snails? I'm considering taking my fish out and dropping in some clove oil, but I want to know if there is anything I could try before taking that extreme of a measure. Any and all advice welcome!

 

[dudley]

Do NOT use clove oil in your aquarium, it has an oily consistency and is very difficult to remove.

You can try putting a piece of lettuce in the bottom of the tank, the snails should swarm it during the night and you can remove them in the morning. Repeat as necessary.

The usual problem is the snails are finding excess food in the tank so they are multiplying quickly, you can try vacuuming your substrate more often to remove uneaten food.

 

[JEGuerra]

Do NOT use clove oil in your aquarium, it has an oily consistency and is very difficult to remove.

You can try putting a piece of lettuce in the bottom of the tank, the snails should swarm it during the night and you can remove them in the morning. Repeat as necessary.

The usual problem is the snails are finding excess food in the tank so they are multiplying quickly, you can try vacuuming your substrate more often to remove uneaten food.

I will definitely try this tonight and repeat, but on top of that, are there any fish that can sort of help me with the problem? I've been looking to add more fish to the aquarium as well

 

[dougall]

Loaches would help, puffers too maybe

But you need to find something that would work with your existing stock, and that you will want long term and be able to feed.. dwarf puffers, for example, are normally kind of picky eaters.. mine would only ever take live snails or black worms . Or frozen bloodworms.

Loaches are easier.. just watch for their maximum adult size to make sure that will work long term, and if they need to be kept in groups or if alone is fine .


I would totally suggest against assassin snails. They likely will reproduce and need feeding when they have finished with your pest snails . So you would just be perpetuating the same problem.

 

[fishorama]

Be careful adding fish to "fix" a snail problem. I love loaches but they need to be in a group of 5 or 6 at least. Kuhli loaches won't eat many snails if any & only small 1s. The "botia" types are better at snail eating. Hillstream loaches won't eat any snails at all. Please don't get just 1 loach. It's cruel to a schooling species & can cause the loner to become aggressive. I've never kept puffers or assassin snails.

Some people use a copper based med to kill snails I DO NOT recommend that. The dead snails will cause major ammonia & nitrate spikes & endanger your fish from all the dead snails. It will also ruin you tank for inverts forever

It will depend a lot on what fish you have now. What species & how many of each? You may not have enough "floor space". Plecos tend to like a cave each & loaches need probably 2 caves for each species.

In addition to dudley's lettuce bait & removal technique learn to look for snail egg masses. They look like 1/4 inch(or so) jelly spots on glass, plants or other decor. Before a water change scrape off as many as you see (fingernails work) & vacuum them out. & like Dee said feed less & vac more.

All that said I don't mind a few snails

 

[lnsaneM]

If the snails are small enough you could get some pea puffers to get rid of them

 

[Daisy317]

I trap them in Romaine lettuce held down by small pebbles & throw into the garbage. Swap out the lettuce daily or they’ll eat too much and breed even more. I got them from eggs on plants at the LFS . Seriously hate them

 

[Smac1977]

An Assassin snail would also work well getting rid of them them I just got one for my ten gallon, and he is one of my favourite things and he hasn't touched any of my shrimp yet.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It is difficult to eradicate snails. I know because I have been battling them for many years. If yiy use assassin snails to eat the pest snails, you will wind up with many assassins in the end. At least they are prettier.

As for using loaches, I have had breat success. But only becsue I wanted to keep these fish, So I have both clown loaches and sidthimunkis. That gives me one of the biggest and one of the smallest ot the species options. Big clowns eat big snails and small clowns eat small snails. Sid eat only small snails. One can eliminated snail [p[s either way. Eradicate the breeders and the babies stop coming. Eliminate the kids and there will eventually be no adults. I have no snails in the 150 with the clowns and no snails in a 25 with the Sids. Both tanks did have snails at one time.

Puffers are cute but hard to keep in community tanks. I have never kept puffers though.

I can also say I have lots of snails in some of my pleco breeding and grow tanks. I usually catch them and then drop them into the tanks with the assassin snails. The breeding/grow tanks are all species tanks and I will not add anything else to them. I cannot say if assassins will or will not eat fish eggs or tiny fry overnight. I doubt the fry are at risk, but I don't take chances as the fry are worth a lot more than the snails.

 

[dickinsonron]

To eliminate them, an assassin snail would also be effective. One of my favorite things is this new addition to my ten-gallon tank; so far, he has avoided eating my shrimp.