Hello! New To This Forum

[Mosura]

Hi everyone. I'm Mosura and new to this forum. Happy with the hobby, but I'm here because of a snail problem.
 
I have a 30-gallon community tank with 1 Yoyo loach, another loach not sure what type, 5 neon tetras, 4 zebra danios, and bunch of platys. Decorated with 2 large pieces of wood, anubias, some other plants, gravel substrate. Have been into fish for about a year and a half now and learned the hard way about ick and algae. Now everyone is happy. However...I have a BIG problem with ramshorn snails. 
 
Last year I was up to about 150 snails on the glass every day and countless more in the gravel. They were not only unsightly but caused high nitrate and nitrite levels. And Yes, I got the loaches to eat the snails...the Yoyo loach is about 4 inches long, the other about 2, and they didn't control the problem.
 
So I started a brand new tank. Dipped all the plants in 1/19 bleach solution and quarantined them for 10 days. Got new gravel. Cycled from scratch and all new filter media. You get the idea.
 
Snails came back about 3 weeks into the happy new tank.
So I did copper. Cupramine at recommended dose, 0.4 ppm, for a week.
3 hours after changing out the copper-ed water with new water, three snails showed themselves.
Dosed with copper again for a week.
Two snails showed up after copper removed.
Now I'm 10 days into a new copper treatment. Spotted 2 snails a couple days ago. But I figured, I'll outlast them, this treatment will do it.
Saw 2 adult snails getting frisky last night. 2 hatchling snails today.  
 
Loaches haven't worked. Brand new tank with all new stuff hasn't worked (eggs must have made it over to new tank). Copper treatment x 3 isn't working.
 
I just ordered Potassium Permanganate. I'm gonna use it in the tank to sterilize the tank, gravel, and wood. Gonna use a dip to sterilize the plants. Fish will be safe in a bucket.
Any thoughts, you guys?
Thanks.

 

[fluttermoth]

The main cause of massive snail populations is overfeeding (it's easily done; I do it too!).
 
Cutting back your feeding, removing snails when you see them, trapping and removing, and possibly considering adding some assassin snails (which eat other snails and breed only very slowly), are all far better options than using chemicals.
 
Potassium permanganate is really nasty stuff, and will soak into your wood, leaving it potentially toxic for some time after treatment, so don't use it on wood, if you use it all (I wouldn't).

 

[Mosura]

Thank you, ma'am! 
I have cut back on food. Fish are annoyed I was removing snails when I saw them...150 at a time. I tried trapping; they laughed and demanded better vegetables. The loaches tried to control the snails but the snails laughed at them, too. They even came back after I set up what I thought was an all-new, sterile tank. Yes, population is way down, but not gone, and that's the problem. These guys are now cruising around in the copper-treated water like it's a spa treatment, probably looking for interesting places to lay eggs. Every day now I find at least a handful. I am suffering from obsessive snail-related PTSD. I know that one snail gives rise to 1,000,000 and I think I have bred a new breed of Super Snail that sneers at copper. I heard assassin snails don't eat the eggs, which I desperately want to eliminate. So I am hell-bent on using the PP. But I will take your excellent advice about the wood. I figure if I put it in a mild bleach solution, then leave it out in the sun for a week or so, any eggs on the wood should be killed...right? Thanks for writing back. I am really a normal person in all other respects except in relation to these monstrous mollusks!

 

[DrRob]

Snails and aquariums go hand in hand. The only way I've ever removed them is having good numbers of large cichlids, and they came back when I removed those from the tank, so they can't all have been gone.
 
Personally, I've learned to ignore them, they're harmless enough but do give you a clue that you're overfeeding, as Fluttermoth says. The overfeeding might also explain the high nitrate/nitrite levels (plus food lasts a lot longer when you cut back, which is good for the bank balance).
 
As for multiplying, they will only multiply if there's plenty of food for them, so that becomes a non issue if you solve the problem.
 
So overall, look at the feeding, if you get that right, then the problem will largely go away, and you'll have a happier tank.
 
(I've done it too, and it's almost impossible to get right in some tanks such as fry tanks).
 
Oh, and welcome!