Losing the pond snail battle

[cfosgate]

Yes, I let mine build up. Kept my assassins happy for about 2-3 months then there were just no pond snails at all.

Yes! Assassin snails definitely eat MTS. I have a tank full of MTS and I added 10 assassin snails. They haven't wiped them out but have kept them in check since MTS are libebearers and breed so quickly.

 

[DragonFish71]

Or, you can trap them and throw them away. I use a small round ziplock container, put some holes in it using a heated up round head screwdriver, not big holes, just big enough for them to get in, throw in a few algae wafers, weight it down with a few rocks, let them climb in, remove, dump in trash, do it over. If you don't have algae wafers, lettuce works too.

 

[cfosgate]

I have found that zapping a slice of zucchini in the microwave for 15 seconds will draw MTS faster than light LOL

 

[Blackpeanut]

I have a loach and that take care
of them!!!

 

[trennamw]

The Wet Spot (who is down to 1 dwarf chain loach as of yesterday but will have more) said that a school will seriously control the snail situation. If any snails got too big for the loaches, remove them or smash them and the loaches will eat them. Having some in the sump could then be considered your in tank loach food supply!

I'm actually a little excited now about the snails lol ...

 

[threnjen]

Yeah that's why I want some of those dwarf chain loaches They are very cute too.

 

[Old Scales]

+1 on the dwarf chain loaches. I have two I got from the Wet Spot. They are a hoot to watch. So cute as they kind of "waddle swim". Always together. They TOTALLY wipe out any snail that dares show itself in my 29g. OS.

 

[NinjaTetra]

I have 8 corydoras habrosus, and maybe im wrong but i think theyve eaten a few snails or maybe the egg sacks. Ive seen 3 snails in the past few days and there were dozens i counted before i got the corys.

 

[FWFishTanks]

Daaang these things are a MENACE. I pick them out ANY TIME I see them. But at this point they just keep coming and coming. I can tell we are losing this battle.

What on EARTH do you guys do??

I could go with small loaches (which ones are they, zebra or yoyo that eat snails, need to google) - we have no ground dwellers since we lost all of our cories to a disease. But I really would rather have the cories and I hear that the loaches can be rather annoying tankmates and cories would not fit well with them.

What are some other options for pond snail control?? It seems obvious i cannot control every source of eggs.

One thing you could do is take a piece of lettuce, and sit it in the water for a few hours, then check on it, snails should be all over it. If you keep doing that over and over again, the snail population will lower drastically.

 

[Luananeko]

+1 on the Assassin Snails and Dwarf Chain Loaches! World of Wet Pets sometimes gets the DCLs in stock too, so keep an eye out there if you don't have time to make the trek out to Wet Spot. I have a school of 13 or so of them in my 75 gallon along with what started as 8 assassin snails. I went from being overrun with MTS, Ramshorn, and Pond Snails (as in I was pulling out 5 ounces worth of snails at a time when I was manually pulling them) to having zero snails and an army of Assassin Snails (to the point that I'm actually selling the babies back to Wet Pets every 2 weeks) over the course of 6 months.

Even without a snail issue, I'd vote for the DCLs just as being awesome and fun bottom dwellers Mine are the clowns of my tank! They're constantly tumbling over each other while playing, trying to pretend they're part of a school with my other fish in the tank, and rummaging around for goodies in the gravel. My favorite was when I caught one of them bumbling around the tank with it's face buried deep in a snail shell... Total goofs!

Edit: One more snail eater bottom dweller that I just remembered... Dwarf Crayfish! I can't vouch for how effective they are since I have Assassins in the tank too (along with 2 large Nerites that have never been pestered), but I've seen my crays munching on pest snails in my 36 gallon tank quite often.

 

[captaincritical]

Probably a moot point by now because the DCL's sound absolutely lovely, but two small assassin snails took care of the entire snail problem in my 35g tank. Two! I still see a snail or two when I vacuum the gravel, but they're minuscule and get eaten right away.

 

[Mama Karoti]

I love my assassin snails. They are so neat. I had three in a 60 gal to control the pond snails and I thought they killed them off completely and was worries they would starve. They seem to be good scavengers, though, and even produced an offspring so now I have four of them. I recently found a few pond snails so I think there is balance there. Anyway, they are fun snails to have in their own right. They like to burrow in the sand, too.

 

[toddnbecka]

DCL's are a menace on their own, can be rather troublesome depending on what other fish you have. They tend to terrorize anything slow-moving or generally mellow/non-aggressive. Mix well with cichlids (aside from angels) and larger tetras, much better with Synodontis than Corydoras catfish.

 

[Luananeko]

DCL's are a menace on their own, can be rather troublesome depending on what other fish you have. They tend to terrorize anything slow-moving or generally mellow/non-aggressive. Mix well with cichlids (aside from angels) and larger tetras, much better with Synodontis than Corydoras catfish.

Mmmm they're only a menace if you keep them in small numbers. I have a group of 11 in my tank and they never bother anyone, not even my guppies. They're too busy playing among themselves all the time.

 

[Orlon11]

My Badis badis eat snails like crazy. I drop snails in their tank from my other tank, and they're gone in minutes!