Ah so thats where my snails have been hiding...

[mrzap]

So I've been noticing some of my plants have been getting severely munched on, but I have 6 loaches in my tank and have not witnessed a snail in a month or more so I couldn't figure out who would be doing it. I thought maybe my algae eaters weren't getting enough algae and they were doing it.

Backstory: Lately I had been having to change out my water more frequently because I can't seem to keep my nitrates down although nitrite and ammonia are extremely low.

I thought I read on here that canister filters tend to lead to high nitrates if they aren't cleaned regularly. So I figured I was due. I had not cleaned it in 3 months.

I took it apart and there were snails everywhere! I suspect there are even more in the tubes, but it was like a baby snail frenzy. I suppose it makes sense with all the dead leaves that get sucked into the canister. They must love eating it.

So I gave my canister a good cleaning. It was pretty gross. Brown sludge in my bio rings (bleh). I dumped out the water in it and good size black worm wriggled away and I am like ok thats pretty nasty I hope he isn't the parasitic kind. In any case, my fish should be nice and happy. I hope this helps me get nitrates in check.

I hope nobody read that while eating. Have a nice weekend everyone.

 

[Jchillin]

Good job investigating your problem and finding the cause. I had a similar issue awhile back. I hadn't cleaned the filter in about two months. When I finally got around to it, I had a planet of snails stuck in between the intake the pads. Most of them had died (lack of nutrition I would guess).

A suggestion for keeping stray plant matter and the occassional snail from entering your filters is the use of a pre-filter on the intake tube. Large particle matter cannot get through and you just remove the accumulated mass whenever it gets stuck there.

 

[mrzap]

Good idea on the prefilter, thanks