Getting Rid Of Snails

[Syd]

Hello, Syd here.

I'm a newbie to this forum and have a small (40ish litre) community aquarium - neons, lemon tetras, rosy tetra, redeye tetra, mollies, swordtail, khuli loaches, golden algae eater. Oh yes, and many hundreds of snails.

The snails have been there for ages and I've tried all sorts of ways of getting rid of them but it always seems so difficult. Can anyone recommend a good method?

I have often thought about getting a clown loach but thought it might get too big for my tank. Recently I heard that they eat snails, is this true?

I have tried to search the forum but failed to get the search engine to work, not sure why.

In anticipation,
Syd.

 

[Phoenixfish]

if i do my maths that is a hell of a lot of fish for a 10 gal tank? or is it just me? and look around there is litteraly hundreds of posts on how to remove then. one way is to place some cucumber/lettuce in the tank and in the morning take it out to find its covered in them

 

[@ombomb]

if i do my maths that is a hell of a lot of fish for a 10 gal tank? or is it just me? and look around there is litteraly hundreds of posts on how to remove then. one way is to place some cucumber/lettuce in the tank and in the morning take it out to find its covered in them

I can assure you, it's certainly not "just you", I think we have a contender for most overstocked tank on the forums!

Can you post exactly what is in your tank?

What are the water stats? (ammonia / nitrite / nitrate)

N.B. Forget the clown loach idea

 

[Syd]

I don't think it's too crowded really, I treat the advice of the people who work in aquarium shops with a degree of skepticism but I was told a dozen fish was about right.

I have:
2 Mollies
1 Swordtail
1 Rosy tetra
3 Neon tetra
1 Redeye tetra
2 Lemon tetra
1 Golden algae eater
2 Khuli loaches

I was informed that the algae eater and the loaches "don't count because they are cleaners", although I'm not completely confident in that advice.

I put a lettuce leaf in a couple of weeks ago and they didn't go for it, probably because it was floating on the top. I put a chunk of cucumber in on a wire and got a fair number but it didn't seem massively effective.

The water is pretty stable, I only have a tester for nitrite which comes out perfectly clear. I took some water to the local aquarium shop a few months back and they tested for everything and it all came up fine so I don't think there are issues there.

Syd.

 

[@ombomb]

Well it's not as bad as it could have been, but only because the fish are not in the groups they should be in. The tetra need to be in groupds of 6, pick one sort add enough of that one type to make a decent shoal and get rid of the rest. The Mollies are too big for a 10G, take them back to the LFS, I'd probably do the same with the Swordtail. The khuli loaches need to be kept in bigger groups and need a bigger tank. The golden sucking loach is a Chinese Algae Eater, will grow very large, very aggressive, stop eating algae and start snacking on the other fish, totally unsuitable for a 10G.

The Golden Sucking Loach is a cleaner for now, but won't be for long and the Khulis are not cleaners. Even if they were, that info from the fish shop is complete rubbish as by that rule you could add a couple of 12" common plecs in there...

Nitrite should ALWAYS be zero in a cycled tank, you need to test for Ammonia and Nitrate as well.

The snails are most likely a result of over feeding, make sure you only feed what your fish eat in around 2 minutes and no more. Weigh a lettuce leaf to the bottom of the tank and try again.

Hope you manage to sort your tank out.

 

[Phoenixfish]

you can do it with meat too but id get scared my fish would eat it or something, which would be very bad for their health (unless beefheart etc?!?)

 

[Syd]

The golden sucking loach is a Chinese Algae Eater, will grow very large, very aggressive, stop eating algae and start snacking on the other fish, totally unsuitable for a 10G.

The Golden Sucking Loach is a cleaner for now, but won't be for long and the Khulis are not cleaners. Even if they were, that info from the fish shop is complete rubbish as by that rule you could add a couple of 12" common plecs in there...

Thanks for this advice, I'll see what I can do. It's so frustrating that the 5 or 6 different shops I have used always seem to tell me a complete load of tosh when I ask about anything.

Are you sure about the algae eater, it has been there for a couple of years and hasn't really grown, although it does chase the other fish a bit. I had a plec in there once but it got so big. Are there any cleaners suitable for a small tank?

The snails are most likely a result of over feeding, make sure you only feed what your fish eat in around 2 minutes and no more. Weigh a lettuce leaf to the bottom of the tank and try again.

On the advice of the shop assistant I feed them a small pinch of flake food once every two days and once or twice a week put a few grains of algae based food. I'll try the lettuce again. Might tie it round the cucumber and give the little so-and-so's a salad.

Hope you manage to sort your tank out.

Thanks, me too!

 

[@ombomb]

Are there any cleaners suitable for a small tank?

Yes...

YOU!

Any algae eaters are only cleaning up a problem, not solving it. The aim should be to keep nitrates low which will reduce the growth of algae. There isn't really an algae eating fish that you could add, but once you sort out the current stock a couple of small shrimp would be OK in a 10G.

 

[Syd]

OK, thanks for your help.

 

[james1971]

My tank was inundated when I was cycling it before I introduced the fish because they hitched a lift on the plants I put in. There were dozens of them by the time I put some fish in the tank.

However, two of the first fish I put in were Silver sharks and the snails started to disappear. After a few weeks they had all gone so I can only presume that the sharks scoffed them.

James1971

 

[ncjharris]

There's a tip in this months PFK about getting rid of snails, given that the cucumber/lettuce trick rarely works.
I have yet to try this, so treat with the scetasism it probably deserves.

You get a small piece of liver (I understand any rich, meaty piece of meat will do) and place it on an upturned saucer on your substrate.
Cover the saucer with a second saucer, slightly off centre so that there is a little gap on two sides - small enough to keep fish out.

Leave overnight, and viola, in the morning it should be covered in snails.
Do this nightly for a week and you should pick up most snails - apparently the rule of thumb is for every one you can see there are another hundred on plants, decoration or buried! By my reckoning I must have around 100,000+

If you do try this, let us know how it goes.

 

[The-Lion]

Your stocking issues aside a clown loach isn't necessary the answer mine have never shown even remotest interest in snails.

 

[Syd]

Silver sharks are probably too big for my tank.
I'll give the meat idea a try if the salad fails!

 

[Torrean]

If your nervous about putting liver in your tank then you can try algae wafers. In my experience snails love algae wafers.

 

[Syd]

I invented a new device at the weekend consisting of a plastic lid, a small flowerpot with grooved cut along the edge, a gauze bag of algae pellets, a wire and a rock. It helped me remove 3/4 of the visible snails. I think a few tries with this and I'll have got rid of most of them!

Syd.