Better Way To Deal With Pest Snails In A Store?

[mwood2]

So I have been into petsmart pretty often in the past few weeks since I have been setting up my new tank and they are now using Koi to clean there snails in there freshwater tanks. I saw small goldfish in the past but they are now using Koi of all things. I asked why koi and they responded that thats the only real fish they could use to clean it. I mentioned Loach but she said that they harassed the other fish. I understand that there expandable but she said all petsmarts are doing this now.

Opinions?

I pretty much memorized there entire stock of fish (been bored and sadly there the bet fish store near me) and I am sure there are better fish then goldfish.

 

[smbgpd]

Whats an expanadble fish? I have an expandable suitcase that I can make bigger to take more luggage, is it the same principle with fish?

 

[mwood2]

err perhaps I used wrong word, im tired right now. They basically see fit use coldwater fish just because they are cheap and there are lots of them. This shortens there life span or can kill them if kept in there for to long a period. They dont see them as a pet but rather as a quick solution to rid the tank of snails.

 

[saltynay]

Aslong as they are young 2-3" then they are voracious carnivores and clean the tanks quite effectively. I would of thought adding a couple of assassin snails to each tank would be a better way to limit the amount of pests and then could be sold on. Loachs would be very effective however you would need to leave them in there for a week+ for them to get rid of the snails completely.

 

[mwood2]

They keep a stock of Coolie loach, Burmise Border Loach and clown loach on stock. They dont have assassin snails just apple snails.

In terms of how they go about it I believe they tend to have goldfish in 2-4 tanks just to eat snails. I dont even notice much of a snail problem but then again they dont seem to remove said goldfish either. What strikes me as odd is that for awhile it was simple goldfish but now they have Koi in there.

 

[saz326]

Maybe they see that once the koi have grown eating a few snails they can sell them on for more money than they would sell the equivalen number of goldfish for.