How do you get rid of snails

[patrick cleveland]

I have a 150gal tank with 2 large red belly pacu's and 2 large oscars.the oscars were given to me last week. Until then I've never had snails what can I do without harming my fish.these fish will kill anything smaller than them. There's several hundred snails the size of a pin head in my tank. Thanks Patrick

 

[rich311k]

The oscars will probably take care of it for you. The easiest thing would be to just physically remove them.

 

[BfishLpond78]

Use the lettuce trick, put some lettuce at the bottom of the tank and let it sit for a night and in the morning you should have a bunch of snails on it, just take the lettuce out with the snails. Also check the glass quick for any jelly like patches with white spots in them that will be the eggs for more snails and remove those as well. But like Rich said, the oscars will probably get em for you.

 

[ZomB]

Same thing has happened to me! I thought it was cool at 1st when i saw one or 2 snails. I got some zebra loaches when i noticed their numbers were increasing but i dont think they will tackle snails until they're fully grown. Now last night i counted about 18 without even looking hard.

Think im gonna do the lettuce thing! XD

 

[HUKIT]

There are commercially made snail traps and loads of DIY designs if you do a quick google search. I don't suggest any more fish with the amount of fish that's there already.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Use the lettuce trick, put some lettuce at the bottom of the tank and let it sit for a night and in the morning you should have a bunch of snails on it, just take the lettuce out with the snails. Also check the glass quick for any jelly like patches with white spots in them that will be the eggs for more snails and remove those as well. But like Rich said, the oscars will probably get em for you.

+1

I use this method when I want to get snails from one of my tanks to feed them to my puffers .

 

[Panda.moanium]

Use the lettuce trick, put some lettuce at the bottom of the tank and let it sit for a night and in the morning you should have a bunch of snails on it, just take the lettuce out with the snails. Also check the glass quick for any jelly like patches with white spots in them that will be the eggs for more snails and remove those as well. But like Rich said, the oscars will probably get em for you.

I've heard mixed reviews about the lettuce trick. Some say its amazing, others say it didn't work at all. If you don't plan on feeding the snails to anything I would just pick up some assasin snails. We have 4 in our 55 and they keep everything well under control.

 

[samt1]

The lettuce trick didn't work for me at all not saying it's not a good solution but just didn't work for me. So i resorted to snail watch and when I see any on the sides of the tank I got them out, did that for a bout a week and the numbers have dropped.
I now have Zebra loaches which will hopefully keep the numbers down

 

[Joyler]

Clown loaches?

This was more a suggestion than a question...lol

 

[Esoteric Backbone]

Clowns get to be a pretty big size. I would reccomend assassin snails, or a slice of blanched zuchinni, they will swarm over it.

 

[Joyler]

Clowns get to be a pretty big size. I would reccomend assassin snails, or a slice of blanched zuchinni, they will swarm over it.

I thought 150 was considered big enough...but alas...wrong again

 

[Esoteric Backbone]

No, not wrong, I just didn't know how big the aquarium was, sorry.

 

[patrick cleveland]

Thanks for all the advice I did a search online and these snails mostly come out at night when I turn on light first thing in morning. they blanket the glass I read that snails that come out at night are carnivorous and won't touch lettuce. One DIY I read about that I liked because it won't allow the large fish to mess with it. was to take a tuppaware dish take something the size of a pencil made of steel like a nail and get the end hot under a lighter and poke several holes in side but not bottom. and put bait inside snails get in but have hard time getting over the ridge caused by the plastic stretching and making hole have ridges.

 

[Sal37]

Ha! dont rely on zebra loaches, mine completly ignore my snail invasion. cant do the lettuce trick as my brislenose's get to the lettuce before ths snails> I am going with the assassin snails idea!!!

 

[Joyler]

Let us know how it goes