Snails

[Trainer_Ruby_]

have a 10g tank that is overrun with snails and want to know if there is an easy way to kill them all



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[Mebbid]

put a piece of lettuce or zucchini rubber banded to a rock in the tank at night and pull it out in the morning.

Snail population explosions are primarily caused by overfeeding so a reduction in the amount of food you feed will help keep the numbers down.

 

[Trainer_Ruby_]

Does it need to be a certain type of lettuce or will iceberg lettuce be fine


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[Mebbid]

Does it need to be a certain type of lettuce or will iceberg lettuce be fine


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Iceberg should work.

 

[Trainer_Ruby_]

I tried it and none of the snails went for it. Cold it be because there is hornwort for them or could it be because they are mystery snails?


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[Mebbid]

Are they mystery snails? Could you post a picture?

 

[dbaeunn]

Squish them and remove ANY and ALL sacs you can find with something and let it dry out completely before you throw it away. I jst had this problem, it was SOOO bad I had to take my 3ADF and Betta out of the tank and I let my tank dry out for a few days, even had all my rocks in a strainer to dry out.. I put the rocks back in last night and started filling with water.. SNAILS!!! Coming outta EVERYWHERE!!!!
I ended up just buying new clear marble stones SOO I can see if there's any that I missed.. I put the gravel back in the strainer, and I'm still searching as to what I should do because Im afraid to boil or put them in the oven to thoroughly kill them.

((I started with one Blue Mystery Snail))

edit: I have a 15g tank.. When I drained the water, I plugged up my tub and squished EVERYTHING, filled up my tub with a big bottle of bleach, and boiled water then put that in my tub. checked again to make sure everything was squished. Drained the water, Bleached again and boiling water again. Along with Draino down the drain because my luck they'd survive in the drain or in my septic tank.

 

[ywagner]

Ik you guys are gonna hate this idea but the anti algae stuff works well to kill snails.


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[Mebbid]

There are 4 main pest snails in the aquarium trade

Pond snail

Malaysian Trumpet Snail

Freshwater Limpets

Ramshorn

I happen to have all 4 of these snails in my tanks. All of these snails are extremely hardy and fairly difficult to eradicate. The ramshorn aren't as bad as the other 3 and are sometimes kept as pets. Mystery snails do not explode in population. Their egg sacs look like this and are laid above the water line.

The big thing about all of these snails except for the limpets is that their population is controlled by feeding. If you are seeing large population explosions of these snails, I guarantee that you are overfeeding. In my tanks I have absolutely no creatures to kill snails and I ignore them because their populations are soo low. This is only because I feed the right amount of food for my fish. So in short, stop feeding soo much.

There is actually another type of snail you can buy to help in population control. The assassin snail. I used these when I first had large population explosions of pest snails.

 

[NigelK8485]

If they're mystery snails send them to me. I love them. I've been trying to get mine to breed to give me more. No luck so far. I've got two egg sacks on the brim of my tank though so hopefully one of those will produce something.


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[Trainer_Ruby_]

they seem to hang around the filter the most


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[NigelK8485]

Those aren't mystery snails. Pretty sure they're pond snails. As was mentioned earlier, catch the ones you find and just cut back on feeding. Having an explosion of them means you're feeding too much.


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[dbaeunn]

View attachment 262145 they seem to hang around the filter the most


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Those kinda look like mine that exploded.. I did buy one Blue Mystery Snail, maybe the 2 I found a few days later after purchase, piggy backed from the LFS tank were these pond snails.

 

[Trainer_Ruby_]

Would sand instead of gravel be better for the leftover food? Because I've noticed tiny ones down lower in the gravel


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[NigelK8485]

Sand would help keep the food on the surface and make it easier to clean up, but it doesn't eliminate the issue. Just cut back on how much/how often you feed.


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[Rpeinhardt]

Assassin snails.

Assassin snails are absolute beasts when it comes to snail control. They lie in wait and then face tackle other snails, snarfing then out if their shells.

I had a tank where, with a casual glance, I could count a dozen little snails. I added 1 assassin snail for every 5 gallons and the tank became a graveyard. The infestation was mostly eliminated within a week or two and the assassins had eaten themselves out of a job within a month.

I now grow snails in my sump just to keep the assassins in food. They also eat sinking wafers that have a protein component.

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[dbaeunn]

Assassin snails.

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Any idea as to where you can get them? I've tried talking with Pet Supplies Plus, and Pet Smart.. They told me they have some, but they can't sell them to customers.

 

[Mebbid]

Tropical Freshwater Inverts for Freshwater Aquariums: Assassin Snail, Clea helena

 

[ywagner]

Wow so expensive, buy at lfs


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[Trainer_Ruby_]

If assassin snails kill snails how do they not kill each other? Just something to think about


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