snails

[Parcelqueen]

i have googled these little things in my tank and i think they are snails ..should i get rid of them ?

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[Aiken Drum]

Can you post a photo of your snails?

Do you want snails in your tank?

Most of the time snails can be a good thing. They clean up the tank of leftover food, some are good algae eaters, some are great at digging and turning over the substrate which can benefit plants. Snails are often deliberately added to aquariums, some arrive hitchhiking in on plants and other decorations and are considered pests and can be difficult to get rid of completely, but their numbers can be controlled by removal and making sure you dont overfeed. Some snails can completely overtake an aquarium if their numbers arent controlled.

[ColdKoi]

Snails definitely have a useful purpose. But you want to make sure it’s not one that’ll be a real nuisance


Typically even pest labelled snails are only a real issue if there’s a major imbalance in the tank. So your typical ‘newer’ tank may see an explosion of snail population whereas a long established tank likely wouldn’t.

I had hitchhiker snails on one of my plants back when my tanks were fairly new. They definitely multiplied but it was nothing of concern, they were doing such a good job cleaning algae I transferred some to my other tank!

After a couple months nothing exciting happened and their population did decline a bit as the tank was becoming better established and they had less food source. At that point my main tank got a couple of mystery snails to carry on with the cleanup duty (something a little nicer to watch!) and the bladder/pond snails can now only be found in the filter not in the tank

So I guess what I’m saying is, unless they’re a species known 100% to ravage a tank I would suggest letting nature run it’s course.