Snail guest with plant purchase

[webmoose]

Bought some plant 3 or 4 weeks ago. They are doing great but I ended up with some snails.. Guess a few eggs made the trip and survived my washing of the plants.

Has anyone ever kept the snails they have aquired when purchasing a plant? I have 3 or 4 snails from this last plant purchase. Not sure If I will let them hang around or not. Any advice? These ones have a cone / curly shell. Are they going to get really large?

 

[Guest]

These ones have a cone / curly shell. Are they going to get really large?

super tight cone? like a unicorn horn? that would be MTS, they are good.

if more of blunt cone, prolly common pond snails.

I have them they don't cause me trouble. Other people hate them, and report they damage plants. Mine don't seem to do that so i let them be, just get rid of some once a month or so, when the population really starts to get big.

 

[webmoose]

Thanks corvuscorax... I will let them grow for a bit (if my guppies don't eat them first) and maybe get a picture and show you.

 

[Allivymar]

Snails..YUCK LOL

Sorry *grin* I LOATHE snails. I had an infestation of common snails that had to be seen to be believed. I wound up adding Clown Loaches to my crew....no more snails. Of course, I also wound up keeping a breeding tank of those nasties for the loaches as they loved em so much *shiver* twas hubby's job to get em out and feed em to the loaches LOL

Does sorta sound like you've got MTS snails which is not too bad; the common pond snails are the ones I had and were a PITA.

 

[webmoose]

ok don't laugh tooo hard but I have a couple more questions.....

1) found a sac of eggs looks like one glob with a bunch of dots.... This is snail right? not cory eggs... (top of tank)

2) I looked at my HOB filter cartridge and it has brown slime on it. What do I do? duh?

3) Allivymar!!! I have guppy fry!! about 10 hiding in surface plants and a small school down w/ the cory's!!!! The guppy experiment worked!! I know not a question but I figured I would stick to one post....

Starting to think that if I already have a sac of snail eggs I might want to remove the visible ones... And if the brown stuff on my filter should be removed how do I do that without cycling the tank?
Thanks

 

[ferret]

Gold fish like to eat these snails too.

 

[Allivymar]

The egg sac is likely snail eggs; is it up near or above the surface of the water? I'd get rid of em, but thats me LOL Yuck.

The brown slime is most likely part of your nitrifying bacterial colony! Yay Its a good thing; if your brave enough to take a whiff, you'll notice it smells sorta musty/earthy. If its really thick, you can rinse it in some removed tank water; this way the bacteria in the filter media itself won't get messed up.

Babies?! Coolio! I want pics as soon as they are big enough to see in the camera LOL No body in there is gonna eat em are they?? I want to see them!

 

[webmoose]

sounds like I will be playing chase the snails for a while...

no one looks interested in eating the babies... guess i feed them tooo much


thanks for the advice!

can i put a new filter cartrige in front of the old filter catridge to change it or do I leave it in? The intake of my filter was filled with the slime and it slowed the flow down.... I don't want to kill my bateria but I don't want to leave to much in there either... If I should be reading this somewhere sorry. Just kinda freaked out.. haha sometimes I don't leave things that are "well enough" alone.....

 

[Allivymar]

I forget; do you have a bio-wheel on the tank? If so, just change the filter. If not, squeeze some of the brown goo onto the new filter once you put it in; it will kick start it and between that and the bacteria on the rest of the surfaces in the tank you shouldn't see any ammonia.

LOL And those snails. Oi. Do understand I have an absolute loathing for them, and won't let them live in a tank with MY fish LOL But they can be useful; they eat detritus and algae, and aerate the substrate.

 

[webmoose]

thanks so much! I don't have a bio wheel. I have a whisper with flat cartridge.

 

[webmoose]

I removed two of the snails and the egg sack.. since then (16 days later) I now have 4 or five tiny visable snails... How fast until the tiny ones reproduce? If I remove them when they are visible is this good enough or will I always be playing chase the snails?

 

[betowess]

Snails, the much maligned specie. They really aren't that bad if you keep the numbers in check, such as trapping them on a piece of weighted lettuce if the colony gets too big. In small numbers, they are benificial, but without a preditor, they can overpopulate. Sounds like our species, abit. But I will live it here, and just say "Cheers" to the French.

 

[Terry]

Snails, YUK! i don't like em.
If i see a snail in my tanks, i either loach em or zap em. But they don't stay for long.

If i see them on the glass i crush em and let the fish eat them, the fish that can't normally get to them always say thankyou heheheheheh.

 

[Guest]

I'll never understand the snail hatred! I like them just fine, have pond snails, malaysian trumpet snails, ramshorn snails, and Japanese trapdoor snails. I believe they add another level of scavenger to the tank, breaking detritus down into fertilizer for my plants. Yeah, occasionally I have to massacre some when they get out of hand, but mostly I like them. And contrary to popular belief, my snails do not eat my plants. Actually, now that I have puffers (who won't eat anything BUT snails) I need 'em.

 

[webmoose]

Eventually the snails in my tank will win. I took out 4 more yesterday just for fun. counted about 6 baby sized ones just before I left this morning. I guess I don't mind them as long as they don't populate so badly that I can no longer see my fish..

 

[webmoose]

update of the snail bandits:

remove 2 a day since last post in this thread so that makes:

That totals 22 snails removed..... Just from a plant purchase (not counting the ones I removed before...

So snails reproduce quickly / easily eh? Crazy little dudes....

 

[webmoose]

I identified them as common pond snails and the last one was removed on Nov 5th! I they were something other than that I might have kept some around to watch.....

 

[webmoose]

This is crazy stuff... Nothing has been added to my tank except water changes and food. So I looked yesterday and I have a baby snail! It has to be from the previous batch so I did not get rid of them all... These things are amazing I tell ya!

 

[ferret]

You won't be able to get rid of them without adding something to eat them.

Btw, want Black Mystery Snails? I have approximately 600 of them