Arrrrrrrgh... Snails!

[lgarvey]

I just noticed a really small snail on the glass of my new planted tank. *sigh*

I don't plan to have any snail eating fish in the tank, so I think i'd best get rid of them whilst they're still extremely small. I suspect that, due to the fact that they're tiny, if I put some kind of snail killer into the water and they die, it won't adversely affect the bio load?

Can anyone recommend a decent snail killer? I only have 6 x-ray tetras, and a lot of plants, in the tank at the minute.

L

 

[Truck]

no dont get snail killers there bad for plants fish and water. get some assassin snails. its all in the name. they will pic out and hunt down any snail not of its own kind and suck it to death.(much like the kissing gourami.) they will reproduce but very slowly.( slowly enough so you can keep track of them)

 

[jourdy288]

It depends on the type of snail, some of them don't grow particularly large, and most likely ignore your plants, simply sifting through detruis.

 

[TylerFerretLord]

Don't overfeed and you won't have a lot of them. They'll eat algae(which there will be in a planted tank) and left over fish food(of which there should be little). Pond snails and ramshorns(two of the most common 'pest' snails) will take algae and fish food over plants. Trumpets won't touch plants at all.

I don't get what all the hate for snails is. They do a great job at cleaning a tank.

 

[Mikaila31]

If you are going to have plants then you are going to have snails IMO. The two normally come hand in hand. Copper sulfate or basically any external parisite med will normally kill them. But I treated a tank for a couple weeks and low and behold when I stopped treatments the snails came back. Honestly I belive once you have them you are stuck with them. There are ways to control them, but you will never completely get rid of them.