Invasion of the Slugs

[IrisMR]

Hey folks!
I... um, I got my tank, see, and I HAVE NO IDEA where they came from (Probably came from new plants actually... sigh.)... but I have these transparent slug things going around on my tank's windows. I have no idea what these even ARE! They're transparent, a few millimeters in length, they look like they got a brain or something and they crawwlll....

How do I get rid of them? They're disgusting! :S

 

[IrisMR]

I snapped some pictures of the grossities for your viewing displeasure. They give me goosebumps. I got about 20 lurking in there.

 

[Vircomore]

How fast do they move? That spiral in the first picture makes me think they may be some species of embryotic (or very young) trumpet snails. You probably would have no problem letting them go for a little while, and see if that "brain" develops into a full-fledged snail shell.

Of course, if those things can hustle way faster than a snail, then they're definitely not snails.

 

[IrisMR]

Oh they're slow. Veryyy slow. As in it took me a while to notice their movement. At first I thought they were some sort of egg...

they sound like bad news. :S

 

[Vircomore]

It really depends. If they are snails - you'll probably have a good chance to get rid of them before they grow up enough to breed. I keep Common Ramshorns in my tank, and if you're dedicated enough to keep their population under control - they're a great asset for cleaning your glass and sweeping up extra food.

Right now it comes down to 2 things:

1. Do you want snails in your tank? If not, these should probably go before they get much bigger. (Squishing their brain/shell will do them in.)

2. What kind of snail are they? (Some snails don't breed nearly as much as others - whereas Malaysian Trumpets will take any extra fish food and turn it into an army of babies.)

 

[IrisMR]

Well whatever snail it was that made these things sure made an army of babies in my tank... And if you think that spiral looked like a malaysian trumpet, it soons like I'm gonna have to do 'em in...

I wonder, any way I can bait any I might miss in the senseless squishing I am about to give them?

 

[Vircomore]

Sure. You can take pretty much any green vegetable (lettuce, cucumber, zucchini) and take a slice of it and use something to weight it down to the bottom of the tank (doing this at night is best). Leave it there overnight and you should accumulate quite a few of them on it.

In the future - if you'd like to prevent these guys from getting in - look up "de-snailing aquarium plants" before you buy any more live aquarium plants.

The most common source of snails in an aquarium is that people who grow and sell aquarium plants tend to use snails as their "cleanup crews" but then they never bother to "cleanse" the plants before shipping them off. Then you buy the plants with the eggs on them and they hatch once back underwater.

 

[IrisMR]

Awesome! That's perfect, I got plenty veggies I don't eat. Celery works?

I'm a bit curious about them now, is there any way I can put them into a glass pot and keep them as extra pets? Ha.

I'll definitely be more careful about plants from now on. That was a creepy unexpected event. Thanks a lot.

 

[Vircomore]

Celery could work as long as you cut it fresh right before you put it in - and maybe "whittle" it a bit so that the juicy middle is exposed. Snails smell "veggie-blood" like sharks smell real blood.

And yea, if you collect some on the celery, you can just put the celery and all whole into a jar with some water taken out of your aquarium and let them go. If you want to keep them and see what happens - just change a little bit of the water with some more aquarium water every few days - and if the veggie you have in there starts looking a bit rotten, replace it with a new one (you can just scoot any snails off the veggie, as long as you don't force them too hard)

As a bonus - you can set the jar in a windowsill to stay warm and collect algae that the snails will eat.

EDIT: I should add that - if any of your live aquarium plants have some leaves that die or fall off - giving the snails those dead leaves is exactly what they like.

 

[IrisMR]

Alright! I'll feed them the leaves. Thanks a lot! I've put some cucumber bait in there , closed the lights and put the room in the dark. I can't wait to see if they'll take the bait. I really want them out of there.

Also got myself a glass jar ready to receive them.

 

[IrisMR]

say...reassure me here a bit. Do these buggers survive outside water? I dropped a baby outside somewhere on the bathroom floor...

 

[RaptorBro]

^LMAO^

 

[IrisMR]

Well I'm clumsy.

 

[jeremyblevins]

just dont hold any human babies haha