Snail Invasion

[fluffyntex]

Originally Posted by supagran

Hi pitt420 dude.

I wish you lived a bit neared as I have well over a hundred apple snails which do not eat plants. I have golden, blue, purple, pink, green and red apple snails, as well as a few variation as they all interbreed. Unfortunately as I live in England and you are in the States I dont think they will stand the journey, otherwise you could have had some with pleasure.


supergran

Bummer! I have been looking for apple snails for my tanks too. I was thinking pond snails when you posted about them. I would start removing the eggs, much easier and faster imo.

[MisticX]

they lay eggs 3-4-5 times a day ;((((((((((((((

i had a 260 l tank (never knew how much that is in gals) and had 2-3 snails in it, in about 10 days all the walls of my tank were FULL of snails.
(this happened about 10 years ago)

[masai_chadi]

I am experiencing the same problem for past over 6 months in my 20 gallon tank. I have black skirts, neons, balloon mollies and octos. The tank bed is covered with 1-2 inches of decorative gravel/pebbles.

I have struggled to get rid of the snails. There are over 300-400 hundred and breeding fast.

Will be trying a lead method to reduce their population.

Would loaches harm any of my other fishes?

[Purrbox]

masai_chadi - I think that the size of your aquarium is more prohibitive to loaches than any potential harm (which I don't believe would be a problem). Most loaches get to several inches (if not a foot or longer). The sheer quanty of snails that you are reporting suggests that you're probably severely overfeeding your aquarium. Cut back on feedings along with manual removal will go a long way to getting the population under control.

[whiddett]

I had the same snail problem as you. I found that by picking them out whenever I saw them they eventually disappeared. However, the guy at the LFS got me to buy a Botia which he said would eat them. I got one but I never saw him eat a snail but they did eventually disappear so maybe he did help.
I also found that alot of the snails lived in my filter system/sponges so try to remove them from there when you do water changes and rinse your sponges.

[masai_chadi]

The leaf trick is working splendidly. Thank you.

[MisticX]

Originally Posted by masai_chadi

The leaf trick is working splendidly. Thank you.

how exactly do you do that?

[masai_chadi]

I put a big lettuce leaf at the bottom of the tank for couple of days. Tons of snails were happily sitting on the leaf. Take the leaf and dispose them. Repeat the process.

I must have picked up more 100 snails todate. Still going through the cycle.

[JohnPaul]

If you are looking to remove every snail from your tank, I can vouch for the effectiveness of loaches. I had a bijillion snails of all sorts (pond, MTS, baby ramshorn) in a 29 gal tank and I put in ONE small (~ 2" long) Yo-Yo Loach. Within about 3 weeks, I went from having hundreds of snails to not even being able to find a single living snail anywhere in the tank.

As for selectively removing some snails while leaving others, I think manual removal is the only way I can think of to accomplish that.

[tropicfishman]

just get a couple clown laoches! they will eliminate those guys for good and keep them from ever coming back! plus clown laoches have really good looking markings IMO and there funny to watch play around