Will they die?

[GingerDiva]

Hi there,

I have a whole load (at least 40) of surprise bristlenose fry (YAY!!) in a tank which has chronic snail issues.

I have tried everything (yes, everything) on the snails and all I can do to temporarily rid the tank of them is poison them with Snail Rid or other copper sulfate based solutions. This works for a while, but the snails always return.

If I poison the tank now, will the bristlenose fry survive? They are about 3 1/2 weeks old and about 1/2" long, otherwise seemingly very healthy.

I'll tolerate the snails if i really have to, though I hate them passionately!

Thanks

 

[bluerose]

You can try the lettuce trick on the snails... will help at least.

Put a leaf of lettuce in and leave the lights off/cover the tank so it's dark. Leave overnight. Snails will attach to lettuce. Pull out lettuce.

Dunno if the BN fry will attach to it too though...

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

Most people dont like to use coper as then the tank is not safe to house inverts of any kind for a long time.

If your tank is large enough you could get some loaches

 

[Purrbox]

If you're having cronic snail issues, then you need to solve the root problem not just keep killing off the snails when they get to be too many. Generally if you keep getting snail population explosions it's because you're overfeeding.

 

[mike47517]

idk but welcome to the sight.

 

[bs6749]

You haven't tried loaches, obviously, because if you got several yo-yo's your snails would be gone in days. Give them a try. I'm sure you'll be surprised with how quickly your snails disappear.

 

[Taelen]

Yoyo's will take care of those snails before you can blink, guaranteed. However, I'd be concerned about the fry, I think my yoyo's will eat anything.

 

[GingerDiva]

Exactly Taelen, The tank is a dedicated fry tank and any loach would rapidly de-populate it to the stage it was a dedicated loach tank lol

As I said I've tried everything, which does include all automatic suggestions of loaches and lettuce leaves (which the bristlenoses eat before the snails can get to them lol).

I actually did dose the tank with copper a couple days ago now, but only a half dose and with the carbon in the filter to clear the water quickly. When it had no effect on the plecs or snails, I added more drop by drop until the snails started dying off but the wee bristlenoses were fine. I vacuumed the gravel shortly afterwards to clear away as many snails as possible.

It worked pretty well, though I already see baby snails crawling up out of the gravel, so will repeat the same method whenever the population grows too high.

 

[Alaris]

Have you tried squishing them against the glass? Then they'll become fish food.