Community fish that will eat snails?

[becrac16]

About 3 weeks ago I noticed that in my planted tank (with no fish in it) there hatched a swarm of baby snails. A good amount died, and now the snails are probably teenagers. I had heard that they can take over your tank (I have no idea what kind they are) but I decided to keep them in there to help clean up.

APPARENTLY they love it in there so much THEY bred! Now I have ANOTHER batch of freshly hatched snails! So it's time to take action.

What kind of fish can I have in there that will eat snails but are good community fish? I have heard clown loaches, dwarf puffers, and assasin snails, but I have issues with each of those. The clown loaches get too big, the dwarf puffers aren't community fish, and assasin snails are non existent in my town. Any ideas?

 

[BigJim]

Botia loaches will eat them. You could always buy assassin snails online. Mgamer may have some. He seems to have every snail I know of and a whole lot that I don't.

 

[becrac16]

I do like the idea of the loaches, but I would have to get sand because I have gravel as a substrate right now, and all my plants are planted in it.

 

[The_Desacrator]

You shouldn't have let the [moderator edit] breed. They destroyed my tank four years ago and I am still [moderator edit].

 

[becrac16]

You shouldn't have let the (insert curse word) breed. They destroyed my tank four years ago and I am still pissed.

You're right. How silly of ME. Thanks for the help.

 

[The_Desacrator]

I would really suggest you hop on that issue asap. I nuked my tank with everything I could and still the snail eggs prevailed. Including clorox bleach, taking them out by hand, and scrubbing them off. Assassin snails sound cool, though they might not cure the infestation unless you get a bunch and they eat the eggs. Consider eggs might be in you filter. I had to throw everything away on my tank that got infested because i didn't want to risk contamination.

 

[HN1]

First of all... if pest snails are overpopulating, there is something you can change to relieve the issue. They are a great indicator IMO. You are either not doing adequate maintenance, there's something dead in the tank, or you are overfeeding. Regardless of the cause, there are excess nutrients in the tank. Take care of that before you add fish into the equation. Botias would be the best option that I could think of if you were to opt for fish though. All JMO.

 

[JohnPaul]

YoYo loaches eat snails too, and stay relatively small. (I had one YoYo loach that ate every snail in a 29g tank in less than a month.) As a bonus, they are also quite fun & active in a tank--they remind me of longer, thinner versions of corys.

Snails only "take over a tank" when there are large amounts of food available to them. That means either you are overfeeding and they are eating leftover fish food that is sitting around on the substrate, or else it means you have a lot of dead/decaying plant matter in your tank that you aren't removing in a timely fashion. Or as a third option, it could be that you have a lot of algae in your tank and they are eating that; if you ask me, I'd rather have more snails & less algae than vice-versa but you may feel differently.

I would suggest you NOT attempt to treat them with any chemical. I know it sounds tempting, like a "quick fix," but it can cause problems down the road.

If you have a really small tank (under 20g), the easiest & most effective way to deal with them is manually. Every time you see a snail, just smush it up against the glass or between your fingers and let your fish snack on it. Healthy, nutritious snack for the fish, and one less snail in you tank. You can also blanch some fresh veggie like a slice of zucchini, a leaf of spinach, etc., put it in your tank after the lights go out, wait a couple of hours, then go back and check on it -- it will be covered in snails. Remove it from the tank, shake off all the snails in the trash, then repeat. Do that every night (or every other night) for a week or two and you'll get every snail in the tank.

The last thing I'll say is that, because they do eat decaying plant mattter and many (not all) forms of algae, snails can be a real blessing in a planted tank. If you are worried about them reproducing too much, consider getting a few nerite snails. They cannot reproduce in freshwater, so you get all the benefits of having a snail or two in the tank without any worries about a population explosion. Nerites are a favorite of people who battle Green Spot Algae (GSA) as they are basically the only snail out there that will eat it, both on glass and on plant leaves. There are a variety of nerites (green, zebra, red spotted, crown, etc.) out there, some are quite stunning looking. Assuming your tank isn't completely overrun with algae, a stocking ratio of 1 nerite per 10 gallons seems to do the trick to help keep GSA and some other algaes in check.

 

[BigJim]

+1 for HN1 and JohnPaul. Don't nuke the tank.

There's also no need to replace the gravel with sand as long as the gravel isn't sharp.

As HN1 said, pond snails are a great indicator of whether you're overfeeding. I'm not that disciplined, so I got some assassin snails. They keep my MTS populations at reasonable levels.

 

[Da Squid]

Zebra Loaches. Just another loach option. They don't grow very big and while shy, are relentless snail eating machines. Plus it's fun to hear them make crunching noises when they feed. Just make sure you keep some dark shadowy places for them to hide in.

 

[RaptorBro]

Snail trap

 

[becrac16]

I will be sure to do some tank maintenance, I have a plant in there that isn't doing too well so I'll take that out. I think that's the problem. I am also seeing a lot of tiny tiny...I'd describe them as 'bugs', maybe, that are at the top of the tank. I can't tell if the snails are feeding on those or if those are in fact the beginnings of more snails.

 

[becrac16]

P.S. I have a 55 gal tank, so keeping the first batch would have been fine to me. But now that there is more...

I think there may be a lot of algae in there too, but maybe not. They mostly stay on the plants (I think they've reverted to eating live plants), walls, and upside-down on the surface of the tank (where all those little things are).

 

[Lou]

Botia loaches will eat them. You could always buy assassin snails online. Mgamer may have some. He seems to have every snail I know of and a whole lot that I don't.

Clown's do great job on snails, when they start getting too big trade them off.

 

[becrac16]

Ah I have had experience giving away my fish and I was depressed for weeks. Like, cry myself to sleep. I don't want to go through that again. Plus, its so difficult to find good homes to fish.

 

[mudraker]

My bettas eat snail eggs to the point I have a hard time keeping even a few adults for cleaning.

 

[dkpate]

Where do you live? I can send you assassin snails if you are in the US. I would only charge you $2/snail plus shipping ($4.95).

 

[JohnPaul]

Well if you have a 55g tank then you certainly have room for a few of the smaller loaches like zebra loaches, and they will do a fine job of keeping the snails in check if not eliminating them entirely.

The comments from mudraker about bettas eating snail eggs is another interesting take on the problem--I've found that female bettas in particular are usually fine tankmates in a community aquarium. (Males can be too, as long as there are not other species of fish that look "close enough" to a betta that the male might mistake them for rival males. With females, that is usually not an issue.)

 

[becrac16]

dkpate, I actually live in Olympia WA but my parents live right near issaquah! If you don't want to take the trouble of putting them in the mail I could just come get them from you, but if you're not comfortable that's fine.

What do assasin snails eat after all the snails are gone?

 

[BigJim]

They'll eat other meaty foods. Shrimp pellets, the red flakes in flake food, and other stuff like that.