Getting Rid Of Snails

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Hi. I'm new and hope that I can get some advice. I am currently doing a fishless cycle with a 180 litre tank. It's planted and the plants have introduced baby snails. I know that products exist to rid the tank of snails BUT I have a current, smaller tank that I want to transfer the inhabitants from, which includes a large apple snail.

If I treat the cycling tank with antisnail, how long will it be before the big snail could be introduced? Is there another method other than chemicals? Thanks very much.

 

[simonbrown403]

The best thing to do is, once you finished treating and all the snails have gone , put carbon in your filter to remove the treatment.

Failing that you could do lots of water changes, to dilute the treatment, then you can put then in after about a week.

Clownloach and certain other botia species are a good for controlling snails, clowns impaticular will get big in the right conditions.

 

[Phoenixfish]

What do I do about "snail plague"?

Snails, like algae ,can be both a blessing and a nuisance in tanks. Some species will burrow into the gravel and keep it from being compacted, others will eat Algae. However some will reproduce unchecked and become a pain in the bum.
There are treatments on the market for treating tanks with a snail explosion however care should be taken that in killing the snails you don't pollute the tank as inside the shells they are all meat and killing a lot in one go can cause problems. I normally like to try other methods first and a good tip is to tie a cube of meat to a piece of cotton and put it in the tank overnight, before you switch the light on in the morning pull out the cube and you should have snails on the cube which you can dispose of. Don’t switch on the light first though or they will all drop off and you are back to square one. Needless to say if you have this problem always remove any you see on the glass or ornaments with a fine net and dispose of them.
Clown loach eat snails and I always like to have some in any tank as a natural means of controlling them, however if you put some in your tank remember that clown loach have skin not scales, so if ever you dose your tank with medication only use half doses at any one time.

thank you glover's in fenton