Killing Snails Without Harming Plants?

[guppyrookie]

What chemicals have you guys tried that would wipe out the snail population in my tank without harming the plants?

 

[mike455555]

i wouldent use chemicals, get afew assassin snails, ok the result might not be instant but they much away on all your pests look nice and breed way slower 

 

[fluttermoth]

I agree with mike; assassins are great.
 
Also, cut right back on your feeding. Pest snails will only breed out of control if there is excess food for them to eat; cut back the food and the amount of snails will decrease (gradually!).

 

[mike455555]

id like to agree with flutter to some degree, but also snails feed on algae, i hardly ever feed my shrimp tanks because theres another algae in there to support them, as well as a ton of snails

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I am really fond of assassin snails too. They have completely wiped out the pest snails in my biggest tank... at least I can't recall the last time I've seen any. In my next tank they have them down to an absolute minimum and I hardly see the pests (and my assassins have taken to breeding in that tank).

You always have the option to remove everything from your tank, boil your sand/gravel to kill any snails, scrub down the tank and the rest (preserve filter media of course), wiped down plants and put it all back together.... that is a huge effort though.

 

[SombreroBanana]

Put a romaine lettuce leaf in the tank every night, they'll all congregate on there. Just pick it out in the morning, they should be gone in a couple weeks.

 

[guppyrookie]

I think I'm going to get a assassin snail, just one though because it takes two to breed right? If i get one then i'll eventually only have one snail?

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Assassins aren't as anywhere near as quick at breeding as pest snails mate.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I have there abouts 40 assassins (I bought about 8 and they breed) but you would never guess there were that many if you looked in my tank. They grow VERY slowly. PLUS, come nice weather and once they have grown enough, they can be sold on ebay for a bit of money and are super easy to package up.

 

[fluttermoth]

I think I'm going to get a assassin snail, just one though because it takes two to breed right? If i get one then i'll eventually only have one snail?

They can be carrying eggs when you get them though; my son started with just one, and he's had loads now
 
But really, don't worry about them breeding; they don't get out of control like the pest snails do.

 

[guppyrookie]

So I found out that I can turn this awful snail population into a beneficial situation. I learned that in addition to assassin snails, bladder snails also sell for some money on ebay. I will leave my tank as it is and sell the snails when they get too populated since I can't get rid of it anyways.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I started with about 9 assassin snails more than 2 years ago. They're now in 3 of my tanks and I honestly don't know how many there are. They often burrow under the substrate so you don't see them. I never see any pond or ramshorn snails, but I do see their empty shells. The assassins are beautiful, I think. Really glad I got them.
 
BTW, in the meantime you can crush the snails which treats the fish. I'm not a big fan of doing that just because I don't like killing anything outright, but it'll help if you have a population explosion.