Movin' up from a 10gallon..too many snails.

[Jack Bauer]

Hi There,
New to this forum. I currently have a 10 gallon freshwater tank with 4 harelquin rosboras and 2 bronze corys. An Amazon sword and a driftwood piece is also in the tank. The tank has been going for 3 months now (after a proper cycle) with no issues other than a pond snail population explosion from either the introduced plant or driftwood. My feedings have been cut back a lot and I manually remove them every day (yes I used the lettuce technique as well but seems they don't like the lettuce I buy as none were on it the next day).

My question is that I feel like my tank is too small to introduce another type of fish that can help keep the snails down and if I use an assasin snail(s) it seems to be hit or miss, so should I move up to a larger size tank and add something like loaches or other snail eating fish (I don't think a puffer would do well in that community)? (little bit of a run on sentence I know....)
Thanks

 

[Jack Bauer]

Sorry. Here is my tank..

 

[Homedog98]

Well in my LFS (local fish store) I see them put trained goldfish in the tank that eat the snails. You could possibly "rent" one if you could find it. That way you could get rid of your snail problem without upgrading tanks.

 

[jessibell]

depending on the salt tolderance of the fish you have, you can try gradually adding a little bit of freshwater aquarium salt to your tank at a level safe for your fish. I accidentally killed my trapdoor snails once by putting fresh water in their tank that had a tiny amount of salt in it, intended for another tank. Also, a lot of snails are intolerant of common fish medications, so you could consider giving your tank a mild treatment of something we normally use to treat a bacterial infection - just perhaps at a lower dose for a shorter time period so as not to stress your fish. That's the only thing I can think of, other than just keeping the population under control. Try giving the tank a really good vaccume to get out all extra crud and then fast the tank for a day before putting any bait in. When my snails are hungry they go after a pleco log like a herd of cows after a bale of hay.

 

[severum mama]

Assassin snails would be a much better idea than adding fish or dumping salt or chemicals into the tank. My assassin snails are not hit and miss... we grow pond snails in other tanks just to keep them well fed. PM me if you can't find any assassins locally, I ship.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Thanks for the replies. I added two assasin snails the other day. I'll see how they work.....
Thanks again!

 

[severum mama]

You'll notice a difference before too long. The assassins are great hunters IME.