Snails

[Beehpee]

Ty's not a major problem but I keep getting snails in my tank, I know people reckon that in general they are ok in there but purely from a personal point I don't particularly like them, must have got in on a plant I guess even tho I check them obviously not thoroughly enough, so every time I see them I fish em out and chuck em, they are usually about a couple of mm so only tiny so my question is will I eventually wipe them out as I'm assuming at such a small size they are not going to be reproducing yet? I am learning to live with them but it would be nice to think eventually they will be gone. Thanks in advance.

BP.

 

[tarpon]

Those snails will reproduce incredibly fast given a steady food supply. If you feed less and make sure none hits the gravel then they Should eventually die off.

You can also put in a piece of lettuce overnight and in theory they Should be on it In the morning and you can just throw it away (never tried this one personally)

also you can buy an assassin snail that will eat them.

 

[suzie83]

I am fairly new to setting up tanks etc, so not much advice I can give.

However I have the same problem and thought removing them by hand would resolve the problem, this didn't help at all. Before i knew it my tank was covered. Still have a problem. I have a clown loach in my tank so i have found a few small shells but nothing compared to the amount that's in my tank. (my clown loach is getting rehomed in my big tank soon though).

My plan is once my large tank has cycled I will be moving my fish and then doing a complete empty and clean of my tank to try get rid of the problem. I have tried the lettuce thing etc etc and it didn't get many, i also tried snail traps but my fish were to keen on the bait, I know you can get a treatment for them but personally I am against that due to having sensitive fish in my tank.

I just hope that you don't get too many but removing by hand in my experience didn't stop them.

Goodluck.

 

[Beehpee]

Thanks for the input so far, I can't understand if the snails I have are so tiny surely they are going to be too small to reproduce as in lay eggs, surely it would require a fully grown snail or certainly I would expect something bigger than the 2 millimeter size ones I'm currently getting to be laying eggs, or is it possible that at this size they could already being egg laying? Knowing nothing about snails I'm not disagreeing with anyone but just want to get things straight in my head. Cheers as always for all replies.

BP

 

[Tormented]

If they are little brown ones (pond snails) then yes the can already be laying eggs I have al ot in my tank but they all just randomly died XD

 

[Beehpee]

Ok well I will give it a couple of weeks of netting every snail I see and if no better I will have to resort to chemical anhilation or do a strip down as suggested, not to keen on the chemical approach but I will cross that bridge in a couple of weeks, thanks for your thoughts so far.

BP

 

[Beehpee]

I was getting no where with culling the snails so I put 3 assassin snails in the tank and loads better already and they've only been in a few days, so this in itself has now raised a question, if I end up with no snails other than the assassin crew am I going to need to put something in there for them to feed on other than the usual waste fish food that ends up in the gravel? They are doing such a good job I'd hate them to go without.

BP

 

[tarpon]

Nice!
and since they are eating snails I'd guess that you could feed them a sinking shrimp pellet every once in a while.
But as I have no personal experience with them you can double check with Google

 

[tarpon]

http://www.ventralfins.com/freshwater_inverts_a_helena.html

"It is common knowledge that they eat other snails, but it is a common misconception that they ONLY eat other snails. In my experience, they seem to like animal protein. The stinkier (catfish pellets) the more attractive. But on a regular basis, I feed them fish flake, sinking pellets, frozen bloodworms, dead shrimp, frozen mysis and various sinking granulated food. I've also seen one hunt down a live blackworm and suck the life out of it.

Mine have expensive tastes.... Even the Babies!"