Pest Snails, Or No?

[Iron Man]

So I set up my 10 gallon tank a few weeks ago with some live plants and 4 mystery snails. Now usually in the past I have had very good luck with not having snails come in on my live plants, but this time I got an outbreak before I knew what happened. Well sort of. I saw one and left him alone because at first I thought it was a trumpet snail which I is the variety I welcome.

But this wasn't a trumpet snail. Its really small with kindof a clear shell, and its kindof round but not like a ramshorn snail. I'm sure its the common "pest" everyone talks about that is supposed to reproduce like wildfire (which they did) and eat plant leaves.

But these snails are everywhere in my tank now and there isn't but a couple of plant leaves in my whole tank that looks like they may have been munched on.

Are these snails supposed to eat plants? I thought they did.

If not then what's the big deal besides having to pick them out say once a week?

 

[keepsfalling]

I have a few common snails in my tank that don't cause too much of a problem. I really wouldn't worry about them too much unless the ruin your plants completely.. Of course saying that leaving it to the point that they've completely destroyed most plants in your tank may cause you a problem.

I never have more than a few leaves munched on though.. They seem to die pretty quickly.. Or get eaten/bullied to death by my fish

I'm not aware of any other problems though than eating the plants and then rotting once they die, but like you say as long as you pick them out and keep the dead down to a minimum then you should be alright?

I think!! Please correct me anyone if I've missed something though!

 

[Breeze7050]

I don't think a few will hurt. But, if you want to get rid of them do a search on "snails" in the forums and there are several ideas floating around out there that have different ways of getting rid of them. A few will actually help keep your tank clean so you may want to keep them. The problem occurs when they become out of control. I have a handful in both my aquariums and have no problems.

 

[xostrawberryox]

PEST PEST PEST! They breed like no mans business! Started off with 2, and thought ahhh arent they cute... now theres hundreds of the buggers. Theyre not eating my plants but theyre just everywhere stuck to the glass, the ornaments, the gravel you name it. Get them out before its too late!!!

 

[Iron Man]

Thanks for the replies. Yea they really seem fine in here and seem to be helping keep the algae off the finer leaved plants that the mysteries can't climb on. I figure as long as I don't let em overrun the tank what's the problem ya know?

 

[xostrawberryox]

How do you plan to do this exactly?? They lay eggs which are tiny clear little bags with spots in, then all of a sudden u have 20 more! You will regret it if you dont get em out before its too late! lol

 

[chibi]

I agree with strawberry. Kill them while you still can~! You might not think they're so bad now, but they'll just keep having babies and soon they'll cover EVERYTHING. They're unsightly and can pollute the water.

 

[Iron Man]

I was generally planning on just picking them out when needed.....but have heard you can also put pieces of cucumber in there and a bunch of them will get on it and just take it out with them on it. In fact maybe that's best.

I've had experience with trumpets which are supposed to be able to reproduce even more efficiently than these and didn't have a problem. But I do understand what you're saying. If I have a problem I'll find some way of dealing with them.

The only thing about it is I like snails and want to keep the mysteries, so chemically treating them or getting fish that like to munch on them is out.

 

[woogrl]

I agree with strawberry and chibi as well. Those of us who know what these snails can do are wondering why you are even gving them a chance. It only tanks one snail to make baby snails so if you have a dozen or so and each of them decides to reproduce one night you will have over a hundred, and so the snail population is out of control. We had a snail out break start about 3 years ago at a lfs i worked at when someone accidently put live plants in with the fish, well needless to say that to this day they still have to net the snails out every other day to keep them under control. Good luck not waking up to a tank covered with snails one morning.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Yep, same here. Twice a week when I do a water change, I take all the snails I see out of the tank. There are about 2 dozen in the top part of the undergravel filter and another 2 dozen in each of my two normal filters, and god know how many under the actual undergravel filter. All from a 2 inch piece of java moss.

 

[Iron Man]

Yea I thought about what chibi posted today. There seemed to be a bit of desperation in the messages like...PLEASE don't let it happen. There's also the thought of what if 1 makes 20 and another makes 20 more and so on. I don't want an epidemic. I don't know why I didn't have so much trouble with trumpet snails but in thinking about it....they never just burst in numbers like these already have.

Well I'm not stupid.....so I started picking them out today. I got like 15 and I think I have about 10 more...can't see them good unless the light is right on top which is impossible to have on there when I'm sticking my arm into the tank.

So.....will just start getting out as many as I can. Thanks for the replies.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Good luck, but from the sound of it, it's already started. Say hello to your new enemies.

 

[martin_jones]

I too initially thought that a few snails wouldn't hurt.

Big mistake!

I was soon removing 10-20 every couple of days.

I put in some anti-snail stuff which made the snails climb out of the water. However, the fish seemed to be badly affected by this and I haven't used it since (maybe I should...). This got rid of the snails but after a couple of weeks, the eggs which were in the tank hatched and the snails were back.

Yesterday, I removed about 40 of them from our 70L (20G) tank. And there's still more in there.

We're taking the tank down next year so I'm not too bothered, but they are a pain.

Get them out before it's too late!

Martin

 

[chibi]

Good luck!! It's smart of you to want to get rid of them. Like I said, when they die, they can pollute the water. That's not good. D:

 

[MHunt]

I have a tank full of snails and a few fish!

Get rid of the buggers before they take over. My wife is even using my drastic suggestion of taking the tank apart, bagging the fish and clearing out all the snails as an excuse to move the tank! And i don't really want to do that.

If you remove them when you see them you should be alright. Be sure to check your filter for snail eggs when you clean it out. You'll be surprised where they can get to.