Pest Control

[jonnyuk]

I have a planted tank that has 9 trumpet snails,shrimp and 3 diff types of fish.

Last night I found and caught 10 small snails,disk like in shape and flat.
I know which ones they are and like to much on plants,reproduce like crazy.

I was going to add assassin snails to sort the problem out,
will these eat my trumpet snails? I've also cut down the feeding for a while

Cheers

 

[jonnyuk]

Anybody got any info on this?

 

[Malt_Vinegar]

Trumpet snails are considered Assasin food too.

 

[jonnyuk]

Thanks for the info,I thought as much. Any ideas on how to curb my snail population?

 

[-Craig-]

In my LFS they had Snails in the Live Plant tank, i guess the Snails laid eggs in the plants you bought, also i would suggest getting some Snail eaters if your tank is Big enough.

 

[elisew]

If you don`t want Assassins because they`ll eat your trumpet ones, then the only other options you really have are to either crush the pest snails against the glass when you see them, or take them out and give them to anyone you know who may have a lobster/crayfish?

 

[jonnyuk]

think i'll just have to keep an eye and kill them when i see them, im sure i read somewhere (but cant find it now) that you can put a plastic box with holes in your tank, put some veg/food in it and wait for a night. by the morning it will be full of snails.

i may give this a problem.

 

[elisew]

Yeah I heard that too, never tried it though so can`t tell you whether it works or not

I went down the route of adding Assassin snails but I didn`t have trumpet snails to worry about. If you try the tub and veg route, let us know if it works

 

[jonnyuk]

i've been on a mission the last few days killing snails, not see any more snails for 24 hours. maybe its the calm before the storm (waiting eggs to hatch)!

 

[fishy55599]

put veg in there in the evening and take it out in the morning and some should be on there then throw it away

 

[Gilli]

Thanks for the info,I thought as much. Any ideas on how to curb my snail population?

I had tons but cured my problem by picking them out whenever i saw some squishing them and feeding them to my fish who fought over them. I dont have any at all now much to the dismay of my fish!! LOL

 

[BigIan]

dwarf chain loaches work for me. great snail eradication machines.

 

[elisew]

dwarf chain loaches work for me. great snail eradication machines.

Wouldn`t the loaches eat the Trumpet snails as well as the pests though?
I have the snail eating loaches (Botia striata) in my community tank and haven`t dared to put my Assassin snails in the same tank in case they get munched

 

[BigIan]

if we are talking Malaysian trumpet snails then no, i can`t say i have had an issue with trumpet snails getting eaten by them.

as the MTS live in the substrate the loaches see them very little and a well fed loach doesn`t really go looking for them. but they do eradicate pest snails.
Or at least that has been my experience of them.