Snail problems

[vincentchua]

Hi,

my tank recently got a lot of small black snails. What type of fish will eat them all?

 

[TankGirl]

Well, many types of snail-eating fish would not be a good idea to introduce to certain types of tanks, so it depends. Dwarf puffers eat snails, as do loaches, but you have to be careful adding these fish, especially the puffers. Many loaches get very large so it depends upon the size of the tank.

You can try sinking a lettuce leaf or a celery stalk at the bottom and the next morning there are likely to be quite a few snails eating it, at which point you remove it and the snails. Do this every day for a while until you don't get any more snails. Often if you cut back on feeding your fish the snail population will reduce due to lack of extra food. Try to avoid using a snail-removing chemical in the water, if you can help it.

Good luck - this is a common, tricky problem and there is no foolproof way to handle it, unfortunately.

 

[Fruitbat]

One sure-fire (but slow) remedy for snails is as follows:

Step 1 : Open the top of your aquarium
Step 2 : Roll up your shirt sleeve
Step 3 : Plunge your hand into the aquarium in close proximity to the offending
snail.
Step 4 : Crush the snail's shell.
Step 5 : Watch as your fish devour the snail's soft innards.
Step 6 : Repeat as necessary over a period of time until no more snails are
available.

CAUTION: Don't crush more snails at one time than your fish can eat. You don't want decomposing snails to add to the bio-load of your tank.

 

[TankGirl]

Well I follow the 6-step program on a twice daily basis, plucking out the ones that are too big for my finger to easily crush, and there is no sign of a reduction in population!

However, the fish really love it and they are getting "trained" to spot them and encourage me to "prepare" their meal... The bioload is one reason I don't want them to get more numerous than they are, since they really do create an amazing amount of waste.

 

[tkos]

Those are both great ways of dealing with extra snails. I love having few in my tank but my fish also love a snack so we comprimise.

 

[clueless]

I agree with fruitbat on that one.Definitely

 

[Guest]

After I stripped down the 29 gallon tank today I noticed a bit of an excess population of MTS. Like maybe an extra thousand or so. I'm going to have to get some zucchini and start getting them out of there.