Help I Got Snails!

[NewTankGuy]

So I ordered a lot of 10 plants online last week (I put the plants  in the tank on 9/19).  All of a sudden, today, I noticed that I have a few things in my tank, that look exactly like baby snails! I would say that I see at LEAST 12-15 of them! But they are soo soo soo tiny I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more.  So HELP! What do I do??? Will the snails mess up my tank or kill my fish?  Do I need to get rid of them, and if so how do I do that. 

 

[Byron]

This is not a problem, quite the reverse in fact.  I consider snails the aquarist's friends, as they eat everything organic, breaking it down faster for the bacteria, and can get into places we can't when cleaning.  You may see many of them in time, but they will only last if they have food, and these types do not eat plants that are healthy, assuming you have pond, bladder, ramshorn or Malaysian Livebearing snails.  It is usually one of these that arrive in plants.  None of these will harm fish in any way; some fish will eat them, but most can't get through the shells.
 
The easiest way to remove some if you really want to is to pick them out.  But as i said, they will only be there if they have food, so don't overfeed your fish, and don't overstock the tank.
 
Byron.

 

[LyraGuppi]

I want to add that snails will add on a bit to the bioload once they get to reproducing. Some people swear that snails are poo bombs.

 

[Ardvark]

I had the same problem. I bought plants and a week or so later I was over run with "pest" snails. I can tell you how I overcome the problem and you can make your own mind up if you want to do the same or not. I dare say other members may advise the way they would overcome the problem but as I said this is how I did it.
1) Took ALL live plants out of your tank. These can be cleaned of pest snails but I just binned mine.
2) Bought a total of six ASSASSIN Snails, these snails hunt and eat other snails but not themselves unless starving which they won't be because of the pest snails they will feed on them. Assassin's will NOT harm you fish either.
3) I got a turkey baster and suck the pest snails off the walls of the tank once or twice a day and flushed them down the loo.
It took me a few weeks for me and me assassins to get so I only have a couple of pest snails on the walls of the tank a day but some days I have none at all.
Pest snails breed like rabbits so don't expect for this to be a quick fix as they lay eggs and they hatch over a period of time.
 
There are other ways of getting rid of the pest snails but I thought it was to disruptive to the tank I took ages to get to a state that me Guppies were happy and safe to live in.
 
                                                                                       Good Look
                                                                                              Al

 

[LilyRose Tank]

Assasin snails are a good option, so no need to get rid of plants you have paid for. And when they have exhausted the supply of pest snails they will munch on algae wafers

 

[Mamashack]

NTG, the snails won't do any harm altho as mentioned as they become bigger they can produce a lot of waste however this would be a slow process and the bacteria would increase to what is needed. I have shrimp tanks with some hitchhiker snails - when they are big enough to pick off the tank walls they are put in my 30L to grow out and when they are too big for there they will be put in the 60L which houses 4 assassin snails. 
I've heard of people crushing them against the tank wall and letting the inhabitants enjoy a high protein snack.
Not a good idea to flush them down the loo as, if they survive, they could affect the environment adversely with snail population explosions.

 

[NewTankGuy]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! So if the snails wont hurt anything, or destroy the balance of my tanks i dont really care that they are in there.  However, I dont want a million of them so from the advice i have gotten, I put a few Assassin Snails in there (which actually are pretty sweet looking as a bonus), and 3 Khuli Loaches, so that way they can at least help control the population numbers.  
 
Thanks again everyone!!

 

[Weiro792]

Just adding in my 2 cents... I have a snail "problem" as well. I used to hate it, but now I don't mind... Here's why:
 
1. They help break down the fish waste and any extra food.
2. I just am over trying to get rid of them.
3. I have several little creatures to eat them and keep the population under control.
 
So my favorite little hunters so far are 1.dwarf puffers, they're completely fresh water puffers and stay less than an inch so they keep to themselves. Next are my 2. Mexican Orange Dwarf Crayfish, once again they are small only getting to around an inch and a half and won't bother any of the other fish. Then I also have 3 Assassin snails... they're really slow and don't seem to seem to eat the pond snails fast enough.
 
With the puffers and the crayfish I usually fish out around 50-100 snail shells every 2 weeks or so. So its a little annoying but enjoyable to watch the puffers peck at snails. Not to mention I don't have to feed anything special to the puffers, they don't even touch any food at feeding time.
 
Hope this helped!
 
Also, as a side note, pretty much any botia loach is great at taking care of pest snails. However they need to be in large groups. If you can find some dwarf chain loaches, they would likely be a good choice as they stay relatively small and you can have a pretty good size group.
 
I'm not sure if the Khuli loaches will help, I've heard mixed reviews about them... 

 

[Byron]

Just remember than any added fish, crustacean or other larger snails intended to deal with the initial small snails will affect the aquarium's biology.  And as Weiro792 points out, these other fish usually have specific needs of their own that make them unsuitable for some tanks.

 

[cynic]

They come they go.

I have them, my neighbour who keeps discus had them too. The only common link was the frozen food. Unless the snails were in the tap water during the water change.

I think there a good gague of your tank. Minimal number of snails means your feeding right.

Snail bloom shows possible problem. I feel the same about algae tbh.

 

[Bubbelzzz]

I consider them not as a big problem as long as there are just a few of them. Bust just like with algae is they start to reproduce very fast, something is wrong. So it would be best to solve the problem that caused the massive amounts of snails. Mostly it is overfeeding.
 
As mentioned before there are some species that eat snails: Dwarfpuffers, crayfish, and kuhlli's are a few examples. Since I put kuhlli's in my tank (not to eat snails, just because i like them), i haven't seen a snail anymore and all the snails that where in my tank disappeared. So I suppose they do eat snails.
 
Be careful with assassin snails, there are known reports of assassin snails killing shrimps. So small shrimps aren't a good combination with these snails.

 

[Ltygress]

I'm so tempted to buy assassin snails, kuhli loaches, a dwarf puffer and a freshwater clam now (the clam just because I haven't ventured into those yet).

I have pest snails EVERYWHERE in one tank. And yes, I overfeed because it is still cycling and not completely stocked yet, so I am trying to keep bacteria numbers up.

But puffers need snails to eat even after the population is down. So scratch that. None of the LFS have kuhli loaches right now. And I do have a shrimp in there and she's carrying, so no assassin snails, huh?

That leaves a freshwater clam and they don't touch snails.

 

[Bubbelzzz]

The LFS I usually go to doesn't stock them in their tanks since the kuhlli loaches tend to get inside the filter. However, If I would go to them they will order them for me. So you could try that.
 
Dwarf puffers do not only eat snails. They will also eat mussles, mosquito larvea, small shrimps and some other foods. However, mostly they are picky eaters and it might take some time to find out what they will eat.
 
Assasin snails will kill a shrimp sometimes. However, if you have fast breeding ones, you'll barely notice it.
 
At last, I think, buying fish just for their uses for snail eating, is never a good option. You should buy them because you like them. This will be more fun for yourself in the long run.

 

[Baccus]

There is another way to reduce the snail numbers but it will never completely remove them.
1. Use a bait such as a lettuce leaf or piece of zucchini even carrot and the snails will swarm all over it, when removing the bait put a net under it to catch any snails that fall off, but usually the vast majority will stay on the bait even after its taken from the water.
2. Get or make a snail trap, again this will only remove some of the snails but it can be enough to put a good dint in the population.
 
Depending on the species of snail depends on the effectiveness of predators such as loaches. I found Pakastani loaches and dwarf chain loaches have no problem tackling Ramshorn and pond snails but just cant crack Malaysian Trumpet Snails. I have seen even my angel fish eating snail eggs and the odd small snail but not what I would consider to such an extent as to diminish the snail numbers. Almost all fish I have found gladly eat any crushed snails put in a tank, but again its down to you first catching the offending snails.
 
With many pest snails I find just reducing the food you feed the fish wont stop their numbers, especially if you have live plants and natural timbers in the tank, because the snails just turn their attention to the plant life and timber.