Problem Snails

[sarah40011]

i love my tank (30 gallon possibly, im new to fish keeping) and all its inhabitants are very healthy and happy but these blooming snails are driving me crazy. Once there were none, now there are thousands! i bought some assassin snails who initially ate a few but ive never seen them tough them since, ive put lettuce and cucumber in to trap them on and chuck them away, no difference. ive cut down fish food to once a day and halved the amount... nothing. it seems they eat my red lilly to so they have a onstant food source with or without the fish food. Are there any safe meds out there? Or will they harm my fish shrimp and assassins? My tank is beautiful to watch apart from all these tiny dot dot dot snails everywhere. There seems to be two types, the pond snail (some of which are getting massive) and the much smaller flat coil ones, i dont know their name they look like a bagel shape in a spiral (sorry cant explain any other way! )

 

[welshfish1]

flat coils sound like ramshorns but check with others first as im no expert lol

 

[marieukxx]

You can get a safe chemical that will get rid

 

[logansmil]

Hi there

I had a tank which I was going to use as a hospital tank. I had bought some plants from my LFS and after a few days there were alot of snails in the tank. I decided to keep them.

One of my goldfishes became ill and I moved her to the hospital tank. I used melafix and aquarium salt. My fish got better and all the snails died.

Not sure if the aquarium salt would be harmful to your fish though.

Good luck.

 

[Baccus]

I have been having great success with cut up carrots to get rid of my snail population as the rotten thinks just eat my plants when the fish food is cut right back. I cut the carrots length ways and just plop them in the tank, I find over night works best and the next morning it is a simple matter to wipe the snails off the carrot and dispose of them. The carrot can usually be reused a coupele of times but don't let it get soggy. My fish all relish eating the squashed snails so don't be in to big a hurry to toss them all out after catching them. I also got told of trap to make using a plastic take away container. Cut a hole in its lid big enough to let the snails in and put your bait of lettuce, zucchini, pumpkin, or cucumber in and sink the whole container in the tank and wait for the snails to go an have a feed then you just have to pull the container out to get rid of the snails and reset the trap. I would try different baits as the snails will probably go ape over different foods.

I think most snail kill chemicals are copper based and really aren't all that healthy for your other tank inhabitants and is defiantly bad for your plants. Plants need copper in micro amounts not huge doses which the snail kill will contain.

Oh the bonus of squashing the caught snails, is you get a bit of pleasure in pay back on the pains.LOL But mainly the fish get to have a feed on some fresh (was alive) food at no cost to you.

 

[Gilli]

Agree with Baccus . I had the same problem with excess snails but if you pick off as many a day as you can squish them and drop them back in its free nutricious fish food - the fish will fight over it and your tank will soon be snail free!Its always best not to use chemicals if you can avoid it.

 

[sarah40011]

ive bought a snail trap, theres no other safe way is there. i also bought 5 black khuli loaches and am yet to see them lol

 

[Sweeden]

I had a similar problem a while back, when i opened my filter to clean it there was loads of black/brown bits in there. I didn't think they were fish anyway properly washed out the filter and since then i think i've had 5 snails which i let come to top of tank then squish them with my fingers, my Danio's love them (they'll eat anything though)

 

[waterdrop]

Have you made progress on your snail problem Sarah? WD

 

[Aqua Tom]

Assassin Snails

I have 7 in my 180 litre tank & never ever see a problem snail for more than a day.


Tom

 

[StandbySetting]

The easiest way is too cut back on feeding, a huge snail population usually indicates lots of left over fish food, either that or rotting plants.