Snail question.

[asincero]

I used to have a bit of a snail problem. However, after adding 3 yo-yo loaches to the tank, it's no longer much of a problem. However, I still do see an occasional snail or two every once in a while.

I'd like to convert the tank to a brackish, molly-only, planted tank. I also need to change the substrate to something more plant-friendly than what I have now. So, I'm thinking of restarting my tank from scratch.

Since I still see a snail every once in a while, this must mean that there are still eggs somewhere either in the substrate, on the tank, or in the filter (media, tubing, etc.). Since I'm making the tank brackish, I can no longer enlist the services of my loaches to help keep the snail population in check. I think puffers are a brackish fish that like to eat snails, but from what I understand puffers are pretty high maintenance. Plus I want it to be a molly-only tank anyway.

So my question is, if I drain out the water and let everything just dry out for a week, would that effectively kill any lingering snail eggs? I'd hate to have to kill the bacteria thats in my filter now, but I don't want to take the chance of snails coming back to take over my tank again.

 

[mooman]

Well, my first observation, and please don't get offended, is that "snail problems" are usually a sign of overfeeding/undercleaning. A snail population in a well-maintained tank should be just big enough to keep algae under control. You might see an initial explosion, but if the tank is properly maintained the snail pop will crash on its own, and you will end up with the best cleanup crew anyone could hope for (this could take a couple months). So I won't give advise on getting rid of snails, because I don't think you should.

I was wondering why you want to switch to brackish if the goal is a planted tank, and all you want to keep are mollies. Mollies will do fine in fresh water or brackish, but your plants will not. There are a few brackish plants, but not many. I would also think that switching to brackish might take care of the snails without any additional help from you.

Switching to a fractionated clay substrate (ecocomplete, flourite.....) is well worth it, and would suggest it to anyone seriously considering plants.

Lastly, one more plug for the snails. A good pop of pond snails is absolutley essential in a planted tank, as well as imposible to avoid. They will keep your plant leaves algae free during the initial algea bloom (in high light planted tanks these can be pretty bad), and MTSnails will help keep your substrate aerated and consume uneaten food (since you won't be gravel vacing around your rooted plants).

Good Luck

 

[asincero]

Well, my first observation, and please don't get offended, is that "snail problems" are usually a sign of overfeeding/undercleaning. A snail population in a well-maintained tank should be just big enough to keep algae under control. You might see an initial explosion, but if the tank is properly maintained the snail pop will crash on its own, and you will end up with the best cleanup crew anyone could hope for (this could take a couple months). So I won't give advise on getting rid of snails, because I don't think you should.

I was wondering why you want to switch to brackish if the goal is a planted tank, and all you want to keep are mollies. Mollies will do fine in fresh water or brackish, but your plants will not. There are a few brackish plants, but not many. I would also think that switching to brackish might take care of the snails without any additional help from you.

Switching to a fractionated clay substrate (ecocomplete, flourite.....) is well worth it, and would suggest it to anyone seriously considering plants.

Lastly, one more plug for the snails. A good pop of pond snails is absolutley essential in a planted tank, as well as imposible to avoid. They will keep your plant leaves algae free during the initial algea bloom (in high light planted tanks these can be pretty bad), and MTSnails will help keep your substrate aerated and consume uneaten food (since you won't be gravel vacing around your rooted plants).

Good Luck

You know ... one thing I did notice after introducting the loaches is that I have an awful lot more algae in the tank. I don't mind this too much because the molly's like to graze on it when I don't feed them explicitly. But I guess the snails must have been feeding on the algae.

While the algae isn't too bad, I'm not sure why I even have as much as I do because I have six amazon swords in the tank. I was under the impression that 1) plants suck up the nutrients algae need to propogate, 2) amazon swords are supposed to be "tank busters". While the swords aren't exactly busting out of the tank (after about 3 months), they aren't withering away either. They actually do look like they're finally starting to grow. I supplement with Flourish Excel and Flourish Iron every day, Flourish about twice week and shine 72 watts of CF lighting on my 36g tank for 12 hours a day. I was told my substrate, while isn't ideal, should be ok for the swords. But I'm thinking the substrate could be a problem anyway, plus I want to put in more plant variety and I was told the substrate would definately be a problem for other kinds of plants (average pebble size is too big). I think I'm going to go with Flourite for the substrate.

People over at Bad Man's Tropical informed me that mollies are actually brackish water fish. Doing some research on my own, I discovered that while mollies can survive in freshwater, they'll thrive in brackish water and display more vibrant coloring and larger sailfins (for the sailfin mollies). This is the main reason why I want to go brackish. It won't be high brackish though; around 1.005 SG. I've researched a bit, and unless I'm mistaken, the plants I want to get will survive in 1.005 SG water. These include micro swords, anacharis, java fern, anubias nana, water sprite, cabomba, and cryptocoryne.

So, my only real concern is the snails. While they might've helped in keeping the algae under control, they're just so darned unsightly (IMO). But if they'll die in brackish water, then I guess I have nothing to worry about eh?

 

[daveedka]

If Mollies only is your goal, Brackish would definately not be the best route. There are countless myths about mollies, but the bottom line is that mollies are freshwater fish that can and do sometimes live in brackish. Because they easily adapt to Brackish, they are nice as fillers in a brackish tank but still are not brackish fish. In the wild they do migrate into and out of brackish waters and can be found living in brackish conditions but once again they are not brackish fish. Mollies like water with a lot of dissolved solids, and seem to breed better in harder water. This fuels the brackish myth and the salt myth, but still doesn't make them a brackish water fish. Here is an article that sums things up on Mollies pretty well.

http://tcoletti.tripod.com/molly_salt_debate.html

If you goal is to breed mollies, Work on increasing Calcium and magnesium as well as KH. Many Cichlid substrates, aroagonite, crushed coral ETC. Will naturally harden water and increase solids without adding Sodium Chloride, or other undesireable issues. You can DIY Ca and Mg as well. there is an abundance if information on sources and dosing in the plant forum which can easily cross over to mollies.

I agree with Mooman on the snails. I won't have a tank without them unless the fish in that tank give me no choice. If you really don't want them, they can be removed, controlled, and irradicated without any sort of drastic measures. Drying the tank and substrate out would definately kill them in time, but if you are dealing with MTS's it may take more than a week (They are close to indestructable in a lot of ways)

For some hints on snail control removal and other general information try this link:

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50705

HTH
Dave

 

[asincero]

If Mollies only is your goal, Brackish would definately not be the best route. There are countless myths about mollies, but the bottom line is that mollies are freshwater fish that can and do sometimes live in brackish. Because they easily adapt to Brackish, they are nice as fillers in a brackish tank but still are not brackish fish. In the wild they do migrate into and out of brackish waters and can be found living in brackish conditions but once again they are not brackish fish. Mollies like water with a lot of dissolved solids, and seem to breed better in harder water. This fuels the brackish myth and the salt myth, but still doesn't make them a brackish water fish. Here is an article that sums things up on Mollies pretty well.

http://tcoletti.tripod.com/molly_salt_debate.html

If you goal is to breed mollies, Work on increasing Calcium and magnesium as well as KH. Many Cichlid substrates, aroagonite, crushed coral ETC. Will naturally harden water and increase solids without adding Sodium Chloride, or other undesireable issues. You can DIY Ca and Mg as well. there is an abundance if information on sources and dosing in the plant forum which can easily cross over to mollies.

Very interesting read.

My whole reason for wanting to go brackish is because my mollies keep dying, and I don't know why. Since I read that mollies are supposedly brackish, I figured it was because I was putting them in the wrong kind of tank. I never bothered to test the water hardness though.

So, after work today I went and bought a water hardness testing kit. The results were a GH of 4.48 dH and a KH of 4 dKH. According to what I've been reading, unless I'm mistaken here too, is that mollies need a GH of around 30 dH! I'm not even close to that level of hardness. This must be the reason why they, and the other livebearers in the tank for that matter, keep dying even though they're supposed to be hardy fish. What do you folks think?


So now I have to figure out how to raise hardness. During my googling, I think I read putting crushed coral gravel in the filter would work. I really don't want to mix it in with the substrate, since I'm going to change it to Flourite soon. I really don't like the look of Flourite mixed with anything else. Question is though, how much coral gravel do I add to the filter?

And ... to bring this thread back to the original topic of snails .. I think I'll take out the loaches and let the snails make a come back. I took a look at my tank today after coming home from work and the algae does seem to be getting thicker and thicker. If like you guys said that the snail population will keep itself under control provided I don't overfeed, it might be in my tank's best interest to just let them come back.