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belle2025

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 10, 2025
Messages
8
Location
Birmingham
I have a small 100 ltr tank with goldfish and I am having trouble with a lot of tiny snails ...how do I get rid of snails without having to do a full tank clean ?
 
It’s hard to get rid of them once they are in your , as they breed so fast. Therefore I would get an assassin snail, they will eat the pest snails and they don’t breed as fast as pest snails and generally look nicer.
 
You can't. Short of completely breaking down the tank, sterilising everything (including the filtration), the snails are there for the duration. They will be in the substrate, in the filtration, etc. Even if you remove all the snails you can see, there will be lots more you can't see, and they will breed and make more.

You can control numbers. Manually remove them as best you can, either crush them with your fingers against the glass, drop a piece of lettuce in there, and if you can prevent the goldfish from eating the lettuce it should attract snails and you remove the lettuce and snails. There are lots of resources on how to DIY a snail trap. Avoid overfeeding so leftover food isn't feeding an over population of snails. Goldfish need a lot of food and regular feeding though, so that's going to be difficult. There are fish and inverts that would eat snails, but i can't think of anything compatible with goldfish. All of these things are only going to control numbers though, they will never eradicate them.

There are chemical treatments that kill inverts, but they are risky and tend to get absorbed in your aquascape (and even your silicone seals) and would prevent you from keeping inverts in the future should you wish to.

Either get used to the snails, work extra hard keeping control of numbers, or start over and make sure you everything you can to not reintroduce them.

Of much more concern than snails is the word word "goldfish", plural, in a 100 litre aquarium. A 100 litre aquarium is bare minimum for 1 fancy goldfish. If you have more than 1 fancy goldfish or if its a comet type your aquarium is too small and will be providing a pretty poor quality of life, and cause health issues as the fish grows.
 
It’s hard to get rid of them once they are in your , as they breed so fast. Therefore I would get an assassin snail, they will eat the pest snails and they don’t breed as fast as pest snails and generally look nicer.
Assassin snails aren't compatible with goldfish. They are tropical water creatures whereas goldfish are temperate water. Goldfish will also eat (or try to eat) an assassin snail.
 
What else you can do to help control the population is right after the lights go out, place a slice of cucumber or zucchini on the bottom of the tank and every couple of hours you should see snails on it and you can remove them then replace the slice to catch more. If you leave the slice in the tank all day, your goldfish will also eat it so either remove it before the fish get it or be prepared to replace it. Eventually, you will get a more tolerable number of snails. (y)
 
What else you can do to help control the population is right after the lights go out, place a slice of cucumber or zucchini on the bottom of the tank and every couple of hours you should see snails on it and you can remove them then replace the slice to catch more. If you leave the slice in the tank all day, your goldfish will also eat it so either remove it before the fish get it or be prepared to replace it. Eventually, you will get a more tolerable number of snails. (y)
Thankyou
 
I don't have any nor do I want any. So how do most people get them in the first place? The reason I ask is because I want a small Q tank for some feeders for my main tank. Can you get them with feeders (comets)? The Q tank will have no substrate.
 
Usually snails or snail eggs on plants. But I had snails get into an aquarium with some shrimp I bought. There must have been some snails or eggs get scooped up with the shrimp at the store into the bag, and then I must have scooped some up with my net when I moved the shrimp from the bag into my aquarium. It sounds a bit far fetched, but I have no idea how else they got there.
 
I don't have any nor do I want any. So how do most people get them in the first place? The reason I ask is because I want a small Q tank for some feeders for my main tank. Can you get them with feeders (comets)? The Q tank will have no substrate.
Another way to get snails is if you buy, say, a decoration that is in an existing aquarium at the store. I know that people have asked me for pieces of driftwood or rocks in a display tank so it's very possible they do it at any store. Snail eggs can get anywhere a snail can get to. :^0 ;)
 
Another way to get snails is if you buy, say, a decoration that is in an existing aquarium at the store. I know that people have asked me for pieces of driftwood or rocks in a display tank so it's very possible they do it at any store. Snail eggs can get anywhere a snail can get to. :^0 ;)
I don't have any real plants or anything in my tank all I have are like plastic type fish ornaments and my goldfish that's ot so I really don't understand why I'm getting so many ...they just appear and breed like hell ...I remove about 50 to 100 snails every 2 days and have to clean my filter every few days as they seem to cover it inside...it puzzles me .😳
 
I don't have any real plants or anything in my tank all I have are like plastic type fish ornaments and my goldfish that's ot so I really don't understand why I'm getting so many ...they just appear and breed like hell ...I remove about 50 to 100 snails every 2 days and have to clean my filter every few days as they seem to cover it inside...it puzzles me .😳
Yeah, it only takes one and then KABOOOOOOM, you have a thousand. ;) ;) The best you can do is keep removing them as you see them. Eventually, you should get them all before they are old enough to reproduce. (y)
 
Yeah, it only takes one and then KABOOOOOOM, you have a thousand. ;) ;) The best you can do is keep removing them as you see them. Eventually, you should get them all before they are old enough to reproduce. (y)
I'm trying my best lol they just never end ha ha ...thankyou .😁
 
If I were you I would have to start over. If it does happen to me I hope Oscar will show them whose tank it really is :). Good luck with yours. I don't know what all your tank has in it but get two plastic totes one for your fish while you are working on the main tank one to clean everything in. You did not mention substrate. I would clean the tank and fiter get the fish back in. then I guess you are looking at a fish in cycle. I will defer to Andy and Aiken if you should use anything from your tank for the cycle I don't know if the eggs can be filtered out of the water. From what Aiken and Andy said about snails and eggs it looks to me the most important thing is being VERY thorough with the cleaning. There is no rush on the decor. I would get new air line and stones if you have them. Good luck sorry this happened to you but it has tought me a lot.
 
If I were you I would have to start over. If it does happen to me I hope Oscar will show them whose tank it really is :). Good luck with yours. I don't know what all your tank has in it but get two plastic totes one for your fish while you are working on the main tank one to clean everything in. You did not mention substrate. I would clean the tank and fiter get the fish back in. then I guess you are looking at a fish in cycle. I will defer to Andy and Aiken if you should use anything from your tank for the cycle I don't know if the eggs can be filtered out of the water. From what Aiken and Andy said about snails and eggs it looks to me the most important thing is being VERY thorough with the cleaning. There is no rush on the decor. I would get new air line and stones if you have them. Good luck sorry this happened to you but it has tought me a lot.
I started over done a full clean new stones and new filter only 3 things for decor and for fish to play with but still get snails I've even stopped feeding as much ..I have checked temp and alsorts and also my fish just keep breeding ive tried everything to be fair ...I started with 12 fish I now have 25🙈😳..just don't know what else I can do apart from just keep starting over and taking them out as they come
 
WOW sorry I did not see where you started over. You did not clean well enough or you reintroduced the snails or eggs. If you could explain in detail how you cleaned everything and what you used this will help to find out where they are coming from. Do you have a bare bottom tank? Substrate? Did you clean everything nets other tools? Were you careful not to cross contaminate while cleaning? I do not know anything about snails or there eggs so I would treat them like bacteria as far as killing them but again I defer to Andy and Aiken.
Go back and reread #3 from Aiken last paragraph right now the fish and tank size could be more important than the snails. If you change fish type then the snails may not be an issue or if you get a large enough tank you can keep some of the fish and get rid of the snails while changing tanks. Do you have 25 gold fish?
 
I only have a 100 litre as I'm waiting on delivery of bigger tank but my fish are breeding like mad 😳....they just won't stop and I don't cross contaminate as I'm very careful I just think it's due to to many fish and I can't find anyone or anywhere who wants some fish I've looked on websites and online for places that take fish and can't find a sole who wants them so I'm stuck on what to do ?
 
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