Snail Problem

[oxymoron]

I am still in the middle of my first fishless cycle, ammonia coming down, nitrites going up after 2 weeks or so. Everything was looking fine. Then a few days ago I noticed a small snail in the tank, I didn't think much of it, just figured he hitchhiked on one of my plants. This morning I counted no less than 8 snails, ranging in size from 1/2" to a couple mm. At this point I'm convinced there was an egg sack on one of the plants.

My tank is still at least a week or two away from adding fish, so my question is at this point would it be okay to use a copper sulfate based treatment to kill off the snails?

What are the residual effects of a treatment like this?

Will an activated charcoal filter get rid of the copper after the treatment?

 

[Billsgate]

I don't know if copper is harmfull for your tank, but I would try to remove the snails you see manually (if possible), crush them against the glass, or else just let them be. My tank has some snails as well, but the population is kept down by the fish. So once you add fish I believe your problem will go away. I'd use as little medication or additives as possible.
JMO

 

[PurpleSmurf]

Copper is a toxin to all fish. DO NOT ADD IT as you will not be able to remove it later with anything less than a full water change, which I doubt you want to do. Chemicals who claim to "remove" copper just bind with it making it harmless, however these products degrade when submitted to UV. So if your tank is heavily planted or in a sunny room you'll be forever fighting a losing battle.

Just let the tank cycle and get an otto or two, they eat snails like candy.

 

[oxymoron]

Thanks, I just removed 11 snails and my java fern that looked as if it was the source of the infestation, lots of small dark colored bumps on the underside of it's leaves. Also picked off the leaves from my sword that had been damaged by the snails. I'll just keep an eye on it for now. Nitrites were through the roof on today's water test, hopefully they'll start coming down soon.

 

[PurpleSmurf]

Put a piece of cabbage in the middle of the tank overnight, the snails should crawl towards it and you can pull them out with the cabbage tomorrow.

 

[oxymoron]

In all I captured and "released" 13 snails yesterday, one was very small and slipped away. He blended in to the substrate. I'll keep an eye out for more.

 

[mr86mister]

it is ok to have some snails they help eat excess food and sometimes algae depending on the type of snail, but they have the tendency to explode in population as my girlfriend found out (haha...i had to go around and crush each snail one by one) but small schrimp and bottom feeders tend to eat smaller snails....GOOD LUCK!

 

[dax29]

snails

Get some of the smaller Botia (loach) species. They are fun to watch and they love to eat snails.

 

[extremenewb]

my java fern that looked as if it was the source of the infestation, lots of small dark colored bumps on the underside of it's leaves.

You aren't referring to the black "spores" that grow into plantlets, are you?