I do not know how it happened or exactly when but somehow , someway , I got some pest snails . They were relentless , I would spend time picking them out . They were even inside the filter box ! 
I have a 20 Gal long that had 2 anubias nana , and 3 java ferns doing ok with regular pea gravel as a substraight. I have a beta , 5 neons, 2 sunburst plattys , and 2 black nerite snails .
I researched ways to ridmyself of this mess . I considered clownloaches but my nerite snails would probally be lunch for them and with such a small tank that realy would be bad news for the loaches . Thought of assin snails , but IMO , because they can breed in the tank, that would be trading one problem for another ?
So they way I hopefully solved the problem was a total teardown of the tank .
I emptied it , putting my fish/nerite snails in a bucket , my plants in another container , I went to work . I dumped all the gravel in the trash, tore down the filter boxes and rinced them in scalding hot water . ( wow the snails flew off the parts) Scrubbed the tank itself in plain water, then drying the glass with paper towels , making sure it was free of any spot , or slime .
As for the plants Here is what I found that works , I took and made a bleach soulition , 2 capfulls of bleach ( 5 ml per gallon) and swished my plants in the soulition for 15 seconds . Then quickly, I had another bucket with plain water, swished the plant into that . WOW you should have seen the snails fly ! They just fell off .
I later discovered that this bleach treatment had a added benifit , it killed all the alge on the plant !
Now on to the substraight , I got some seachem flourite 2 15lb bags . (one was almost enough but not quite to get a inch deep) Good lord this stuff is dirty . If you get this stuff be prepared to rince, rince , and when Your done , rince again !
I hope that this works , I was not real happy with the plain jane gravel anyway seeing that I wanted to expand my plant selection.
Yesterday went to petco and got 2 potted amazon swords . As soon as I got them home they got the bleach bath . Lesson learned the hard way ! Hope that this helps someone
I have a 20 Gal long that had 2 anubias nana , and 3 java ferns doing ok with regular pea gravel as a substraight. I have a beta , 5 neons, 2 sunburst plattys , and 2 black nerite snails .
I researched ways to ridmyself of this mess . I considered clownloaches but my nerite snails would probally be lunch for them and with such a small tank that realy would be bad news for the loaches . Thought of assin snails , but IMO , because they can breed in the tank, that would be trading one problem for another ?
So they way I hopefully solved the problem was a total teardown of the tank .
I emptied it , putting my fish/nerite snails in a bucket , my plants in another container , I went to work . I dumped all the gravel in the trash, tore down the filter boxes and rinced them in scalding hot water . ( wow the snails flew off the parts) Scrubbed the tank itself in plain water, then drying the glass with paper towels , making sure it was free of any spot , or slime .
As for the plants Here is what I found that works , I took and made a bleach soulition , 2 capfulls of bleach ( 5 ml per gallon) and swished my plants in the soulition for 15 seconds . Then quickly, I had another bucket with plain water, swished the plant into that . WOW you should have seen the snails fly ! They just fell off .
I later discovered that this bleach treatment had a added benifit , it killed all the alge on the plant !
Now on to the substraight , I got some seachem flourite 2 15lb bags . (one was almost enough but not quite to get a inch deep) Good lord this stuff is dirty . If you get this stuff be prepared to rince, rince , and when Your done , rince again !
I hope that this works , I was not real happy with the plain jane gravel anyway seeing that I wanted to expand my plant selection.
Yesterday went to petco and got 2 potted amazon swords . As soon as I got them home they got the bleach bath . Lesson learned the hard way ! Hope that this helps someone
