Eeek! Snails!

[Ellenquacker72]

I bought some live plants for my ten gallon aquarium about a month and a half ago. And today I found 2 snails!! They are small and brown, and I really don't want an over population of them! My pH is 8.3 which I've heard is good for snails. Ammo 0 nitrites 0 nitrates 5. Every once and a while I see a flake of food which has sunk before my platies could get , and I just switched to higher light, but before the plants weren't doing very well. So theres no shortage of decaying matter in my tank. What should i do? These little guys really aren't welcome.

 

[-Mac-]

Ignore them and if they drive you wild, use your net and fish them out (how I control my snail population). I also despise snails so I understand.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Put a piece of lettuce I just before lights out and pick it out first thing in the morning. It's how I colect snails from my FW tanks to feed my puffers, or move them to a different tank.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Will I ever be able to just get rid of them? I took the 2 out and tossed them.

 

[rlg]

Aren't they useful for something? My husband wanted to buy a few last time we went to the pet shop.

 

[jetajockey]

If you keep removing them as you see them, yes, you'll get rid of them. I don't suggest getting a fish for snail control, unless you just wanted the fish in general, and in doing so of course make sure that it's a feasible stocking option. Many fish eat snails.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Can any of those fish live in 10 gallons? I heard that some loaches and puffers eat them? And neither of those are good for my tank. What others do?

 

[mfdrookie516]

what bugs you about them? Is it because the perception is that snails are bad? I welcome snails to my tanks. They're great at cleaning up dead plant matter, etc. And, if you're overfeeding, they'll let you know.

 

[-Mac-]

Heh, if Ellen's like me then snails are just oogie looking and freak her out. I get all girl-tastic about them from time to time. My DH thinks it's a hoot to hear me shriek. However, like I said, just net them out. I acquired a Malaysian Trumpet Snail when I loaded the tank last week; he, gets to stay.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Yes, they're kinda icky. And I've heard many horror stories about tanks being overrun with hundreds of slimey little snails... I really.would like to avoid that. One or two would be fine, but anymore than that... Well, Ew! And I have pond snails, and I've heard they sometimes eat plants. I've been having so much trouble with these plants but am having some success at last, and if snails started harming them, it would mean war.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Pond snails don't eat plants... at least not if they're live and healthy. They only reproduce to extreme numbers if you're overfeeding. If there's food, they naturally reproduce to consume it. If there's no food, they don't. So, essentially, if they do get to be large in numbers, it's because you're overfeeding.

 

[James_in_MN]

All snails that are considered pests aren't bad for your tank. They only get a bad reputation because they can reproduce quickly, especially if you overfeed your fish (as mfdrookie516 said).

I personally am not the biggest fan of two of those types of snails, pond and ramshorns. I do, however, like the third type, nicknamed MTS (malaysian trumpet snails). I just recently grabbed 12-20 of them from PetCo (gave them to me for free) and put them in my 20g tank. Since I don't overfeed my fish (I feed them every other day), I shouldn't have a quick and uncontrollable explosion of them.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Well, I haven't seen any new ones since the original 2 I found, so I'm not too concerned anymore. Now I'm a little disappointed I got rid of them since I'm now dealing with diatoms

 

[-Mac-]

This too shall pass, though I grew diatoms on purpose for my otos, new tanks apparently go through a mad wave of the stuff and then it leaves.... Mind you how and why it leaves is a mystery to me, since mine was mowed down in 48 hours.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Oooohhh.... Does that mean I can get some ottos? My algaes been around for a couple weeks now and shown no sign of stopping. I really wanted to get some ottos at the beginning of this fish craze, but since I hadn't seen hide nor tail of algae, I didn't think theyd be satisfied with just algae wafers. And that they die really easy. How are your ottos?

 

[ShadoeFox]

I love mine, they are personable little guys too. If you are weeks into an algae spread, you'd be god as long as other tank parameters are good for them. In my experience at least. My otos are happy guys

 

[Ellenquacker72]

I've heard they're great, and I really like the look of them, a lot better than plecos at least. But theyre hard to keep. If they don't eat algae wafers, then what else can I add so they're not living solely on the amount of algae in my tank? And I can add 4 in a 20g right? I'll be upgrading my 10 in the fall. They'd be with a male honey gourami, a group of Pygmy cories and 2 male platies.

 

[librarygirl]

Heh, if Ellen's like me then snails are just oogie looking and freak her out. I get all girl-tastic about them from time to time. My DH thinks it's a hoot to hear me shriek. However, like I said, just net them out. I acquired a Malaysian Trumpet Snail when I loaded the tank last week; he, gets to stay.

I feel this way about shrimp. The snails are growing on me slowly (although I only get to see them at the PetStore right now which isn't much and there's one baby one in my tank somewhere which I think is cute), but if I get too close a look at the slimy underside my skin crawls lol The shrimp though, I couldn't imagine ever having them in my tank, I'd have nightmares about it, they give me the heebie jeebies.

 

[Ellenquacker72]

Yeah, I have never ever ever even considered shrimp. They're just way to creepy looking. And why get them if you can fish instead? Il admit there are some really neat salt water shrimp, but freshwater ones just seem wrong.
Good luck on your tank by the way librarygirl. I've been watching your threads and I'm rooting for you!