agh! snails in filter

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

SeymourFRESH

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
381
Location
St. Louis, MO
i counted about 7 snails inside of my allglass megaflow filter today, and they're all in the part that's hardest for me to get to (the part where the tube connects from the aquarium to the filter). i see i have a little bit of plant leaves sticking out one of the slits in the tube, and i'm thinking there could have been eggs on those plants. so that means i could have snail eggs inside the tube! :x

i plan on disconnecting the tube and cleaning it out, but do you guys think their could be an easier way than that? it's gonna be an absolute pain to disconnect all that and stop the filter, if i can avoid it that would be great

my dad is debating on using salt to kill them, and just concentrating all of the salt inside of the filter area...do you guys suppose that could work? i honestly have no idea...it's late and i don't really feel like checking random internet sites on the matter when i can just easily ask you guys and re check the post tommorrow morning of course!
:D :) :D :p
 
my dad is debating on using salt to kill them, and just concentrating all of the salt inside of the filter area
Doing that, it will end up in your aquarium again one way or another

Why type of snails are they?
Salt will work for most types of snails but not all

To get them out of the filter you will have to take it all apart IMO, then that way you can concentrate the salt mixture and get them that way, however they will most likely return as they will be in your substrate etc in your aquarium
 
well i'm not really too afraid to use salt on my aquarium, i'm just not sure it will effect everything else

i have lots of plants (unknown what types), 5 cory cats, 2 BN plecos, 4 blue rams, 2 otocinclus and 10 cardinal tetras

if they continue to thrive in my substrate, then this sucks!
 
too much salt will definitly kill the plecos as they dont have scales like other fish. My suggestion would be to kill the ones you can see and get a loach to eat the remaining snails.
 
If there are snails in your filter, there is almost definitely eggs in there too. I have had snails in my canisters for ever. I can not get rid of them. I have been living with the snails only because I am unwilling to kill off the bacteria or replace the media all together. If you have a second established filter you can put on there temporarily, I would do that and then remove the infested one and really clean it and the media out well. Salt should work, bleach will kill the snails but when I did a bleach dip for my plants the bleach did nothing to the eggs.
SerLunchbox is right about them coming back though. They are probably in your substrate and under any decorations you have. If you are diligent about picking out the ones you see, and really really make sure you don't over feed your fish, you may not eliminate the snails all together, but you can decrease them to a point where you hardly ever see any.
good luck!
 
snails are all over my filter too. THey are just babies though that came off my plants. I have a problem with the snails DYING in the filter..cool. :D.
 
well, i decided that this weekend me and my dad are just going to temporarily disconnect the filter and the tubes to give them a salt bath.

for snails in the tank, today i bout 3 zebra botias and 2 yo yo loaches! :twisted:

but here is my remaining problem: i fear that some of the tubes for the tank that i am unable to disconnect without draining the tank may have snails in them. there's also a section in the upper corner where the tubes are which is completely unable to look into or access while the tank is full, and i saw a snail at the top of it when i opened it up today. i'm 100% sure the snails only got back there because we always have leaves from the plants floating to the top of the tank and getting stuck on the vent which sucks everything into that corner and down those tubes. there is a picture of it at the bottom.

i know i'll pretty much always have snails in the substrate, but i just want to keep them from reproducing in the filter.
 
quistion...why are you worried about snails in the filter? if it is pond snails, you dont have to worry about them lodging up the filters pump (the pump will crush the snails and spit them out) I would just leave it. at the very least, they will devour any deritus in the filter.
 
Back
Top Bottom