Sanitiizing Plants

[n3ont3tra]

My tap water has a ton of copper naturally (it's well water) and the PH is 6.1 . I had an apple snail as the very first occupant to the tank, in addition to 5 neons and 2 black phantom tetras, and the snail died in 2 weeks. But shouldn't it have died sooner? All that copper and an acidic PH? That makes me think that copper doesn't kill snails at all. Especially because now I have LOTS of pest snails.

 

[atmmachine816]

The only way to completely get rid of them is to have a snail eating fish in the tank, most loaches will eat snails, so one of the smaller species is an idea if you've got a small tank. I've heard dwarf cichlids eat snails too.

If you dont want one of these fish, then snails are often a sign of over feeding, in which case just reduce the amount you feed and that should at least prevent them getting out of control.

FYI did you remove the bodies of the ones you squashed? Probably best to if not as the decomposing bodies will introduce lots of nutrients into the tank and could cause algae.

Sam

Don't squish them, you want to remove them first that way if they are carrying any eggs they won't be released as for snail eating fish it would depend on the fish, some would only control it and some would exterminate all of them, best way to get rid of them all is just to strip the tank let dry for two days and set back up.

Bleach 1:19 ratio, 30sec. not 2-3min.

30 seconds is probably too short IMO. 2-3 minutes for most plants is fine but for the more delicate then 1.5 minutes. I know because I've done it many times myself (along with many others) with no problems. Some plants do take a slight 'hit' but soon recover. Some people even recommend 5 minutes but I would think that this is too long.

James

Ya guess you could, last time I tried a minute and haven't discovered any problems, though don't do any less than 30 sec. since my friend did 15 sec. and he had snails.

this is what i wrote on aHow to prevent getting Pest Snails

Preventing pest snails from getting into your aquarium can be a difficult thing. They most commonly come in on live aquatic plants from online, petstore, or even from a friend. Sometimes the people giving them to you have no idea there are snails, but most commonly they just can't prevent it. You also have to be aware of snails when buying something from a stores fish tank or friends or online that has been in contact with the water ex. heater, filter, gravel, ornaments. Most of the time you can control your snail population by feeding lightly and vacuuming your gravel throughly.

Prevention

WARNING: HANDLE BLEACH WITH CARE! PROTECT YOUR EYES WHEN HANDLING AND WASH YOUR HANDS VERY WELL AFTER DONE HANDLING IT


The most common way to prevent pest snails from entering your aquarium is the bleach method. This method is a simple dunk your plant in a bleach bath to kill the snails.
Steps
1. Take your plant out of packaging/bag and have it ready nearby
2. Get a bottle of normal bleach, try not to use the scented and other varieties
3. Prepare a 19:1 ratio with 19 being water and 1 being bleach in a clean new container (I find it better just to buy a small cheap Betta bowl and use it strictly for bleaching plants
4. Rinse your plants under running tap water and rub your fingers over the leaves to remove all snails and eggs as possible
5. Now take your plants and completely submerge them in the solution for 30 seconds (some say 2-3min. but I've done 30 seconds since this was what I was originally told and it hasn't failed me yet
6. Take plant out of solution and rinse well under tap water
7. Let plant soak in de-chlorinated water to remove all traces of bleach
8. You can now plant your plant

Another, more simple but not usually as effective method is to buy your plant, rinse it off and remove all visible snails and eggs and plant plant in separate tank just setup for checking to see if there are snails on your plants

WARNING: ANARCHIS CAN NOT BE BLEACHED AS THE BLEACH WILL KILL IT
. Rinse it under tap water and get rid of as many snails and eggs as possible and plant in aquarium at your own risk.

Getting Rid of already established snails

Once already established snails are rather hard to get rid off. Before you decide if you want to get rid of them you need to decide if they are pest snails or Malaysian trumpet snails http/www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_Melanoi...tuberculata.php. These snails help with cleaning your gravel and getting rid of unwanted air pockets in sand and are valuable snails to have in the tank. Other small snails not looking like these are usually pest snails not attractive to have in your aquarium. Usually when you have a snail population explosion it is due to overfeeding and having leftover food present. The snails feed largely off of uneaten food. Here are some ways to get rid of them

1. Use a chemical product such as Had-A-Snail WARNING: these products usually contain chemicals that are harmful to invertebrates and sometimes fish (I would advise not using these but it's up to you)
2. Put a piece of lettuce, cucumber, or other green vegetable and leave it over night or until you see lots of snails on it then remove it and replace with a new one to remove snails
3. Simply kill all snails you can see (usually doesn't work)
4. Stop feeding so much
5. If your tank is large enough get a clown loach(require I think 75 gallons minimum) or other type of snail eating fish
6. I personally have not tried this but I would think if you didn't feed for 5 days and kept sticking lettuce or cucumber or some other vegetable the snails like you might starve them enough to go to the vegetable and remove them. You could also feed your fish live food or flake and only what they could consume without leftovers
7. Remove all plants, all decorations, heaters, thermometers, and filters from your tank. Let all ornaments, heaters, filters, etc. sit out until they are completely dried to kill all snails in them. If you have another tank without snails take some of that filter media and stick in your dried out filter and get rid of the old media in case it has snails. Bleach all live plants as described above. Do a large water change, take out all snails visible, on wall, and in gravel. You can stick a airstone in and cover the tank with a blanket/towel to keep water moving and heat in while they are drying out. After filter and heater are all dryed out put them back in tank but not ornaments. Leave the tank as bare as possible and feed very minimum amounts removing all snails as soon as you see them. After a week of no seeing snails wait a month and if you get no more snails you have gotten rid of the snails, but if you see some again wait another month starting from when you last saw one. (I used this method for one of my tanks and it has worked but you must be patient and let your tank look like crap for awhile to get rid of them for good)
8. The most drastic way to do it is put your fish in another tank and clean and dry everything out and setup your tank again from scratch, if you do this make sure you have filter media from another tank so your tank doesn't go through much of a cycle again.
9. Use any combinations of above listed steps

Remember snails can be good if kept under control which can be done by not overfeeding and removing unwanted ones weekly. nother site don't know if it's helpful or not

Definately agree with Andy, we should post this Good idea Andy

Sticky it


atm

 

[Underwurlde]

Pest Snails and why are they so difficult to get rid of?
So why are snails so hard to kill? They themselves are not, but the usual chemical solutions either don’t work, will pollute the tank with copper, won’t kill the snail eggs and will also kill invertebrates such as shrimp! This for many, therefore rules out a chemical solution.

Snails also lay eggs that can take up to 20 days to hatch – you think they are gone & then the eggs hatch!

Snails can get everywhere and that can include your all important filters! If you have a snail infestation, you must assume they are in there. This fact makes the problem of getting rid of them nigh on impossible because if you think about it, the ONLY way of getting rid of ALL snails for all possible kinds of set-ups is by the use of a chemical in the water. Hence solutions such as ‘pick them out’, use lettuce, use snail eating fish will never work (and they don’t cover the problem about snail eggs anyway).

You could strip down and clean your entire tank, but snails can literally get into your filter sponges, so how on earth do you clean these? With bleach? Say goodbye to months of cycled filter bacteria!

Kill ALL snails. My final solution.
So it is apparent that the only possible solution is to use some sort of chemical in the water – where there’s water there will be snails and where the chemical goes the snails will die. ALL of them. But, as I said above, the usual chemicals either do not work or will pollute your tank.

For this reason, the ONLY way of SAFELY ridding a tank of an infestation of pest snails is to use a medicine called ‘Flubenol 15’. I have tried it in my small, filter infested tank, with shrimp successfully without polluting it with copper. NO MORE SNAILS!

Note: Flubenol 15 is NOT sold or marketed as a snail killer. It is used to treat fish for parasite worms, HOWEVER a very useful side-effect is that it kills snails by effecting them in such as manner as to starve them to death!

Flubenol 15 does NOT kill the snail eggs and you must therefore adopt a dosing regime. This technique is NOT recommended for copper based products because of the accumulative risk of copper pollution, however Flubenol 15 is NOT based on copper, nor does it use copper at all.

Flubenol 15 is available in 4 gram sachets and is a one off treatment (for worms) for 100 UK Gallons of water. My (patented, LOL) technique was to get some of this stuff and split it into four parts, adding one dose once a week for 4 weeks (thus covering the gestation period of the snail’s eggs).

Do not expect immediate results, Within about 1 week I noticed that the pest snails became very sluggish and started congregating at the water-line. Within 2 weeks I noticed NO snails and started vacuuming up empty shells!

To sum up, to get rid of snails:
Use ‘Flubenol 15’ to completely rid a tank of snails.
It does NOT use copper so is safe with shrimp & does NOT pollute your fish tank.
Dose it once a week for 4 weeks (because it does not kill snail eggs).
Safe for use with fish & plants.
Safe for bacteria in filter media.
Difficult to overdose on because it is safe at levels 10 times over that recommended.
Do NOT under-dose.

4 grams will treat up tot a 25 UK Gallon tank (4 times of course).

http/www.flubenol.co.uk/

Andy

PS
I am not a part of, or in any away affiliated with this product or profit from it’s use. I simply discovered it as the ONLY way that could rid my tank of pest snails and I just want to pass this information onto others.

 

[crazie.eddie]

Potassium permaganate aka PP is commonly used to sanatize plants. It's safe for majority of plants and will kill bugs, parasites/bacteria, snails, and supposedely snail eggs also. I normally like to use a strong solution of PP and soak the entire plant, roots and all, for about 20-30 minutes. Then add dechlorinator, which nuetralizes PP (also nuetralizes bleach). Adding dechlorinator will turn the water brown with some little particles in the water. Doing this will help stain snail eggs, so they can be removed. You can then rinse the plants.

Keep in mind with bleach, you MUST used unscented bleach and should not soak the roots.

 

[InaneCathode]

Potassium permaganate aka PP is commonly used to sanatize plants. It's safe for majority of plants and will kill bugs, parasites/bacteria, snails, and supposedely snail eggs also. I normally like to use a strong solution of PP and soak the entire plant, roots and all, for about 20-30 minutes. Then add dechlorinator, which nuetralizes PP (also nuetralizes bleach). Adding dechlorinator will turn the water brown with some little particles in the water. Doing this will help stain snail eggs, so they can be removed. You can then rinse the plants.

Keep in mind with bleach, you MUST used unscented bleach and should not soak the roots.

Isn't potassium permaganate a contact ignitor for explosives?

 

[crazie.eddie]

I don't know about that, but I know Potassium permanganate is used in treating well water tanks for rust. You can find it in any hardware store, in the well water tank treatment aisle.

Other uses in aquarium are external parasite treatment. Fish can be given a quick dip in the solution.

 

[steve711]

I have found the only definate way to get rid of snails is to introduce some dwarf freshwater puffers.

These are excellent and will rid a tank in no time. They are great to watch, they will meticulously search ever inch of every plant and item of equipment in the tank in the search for snails.

I had a 5' planted tank and about 8 of these puffers and I had to start asking fishkeeping friends to supply me with snails to keep them fed!

The only problem, and I'll admit it is a big problem, is they are terrible fin nippers, but for some reason they didn't touch my Ottos.

When I restart my 5' tank I plan to set up a seperate dwarf puffer only tank as well and put them in the five footer every now and again as a snail clean up crew.

 

[atmmachine816]

I used scented bleach once and it didn't effect my plants and also soak my roots with my plants no problem their and have had 0 snails.

 

[SuperColey1]

Like George I just buy em and put em in, then complain about snails.

I have no invertebrates, so this isn't a prob.

I have a UV to 'help' kill anything the plants bring in.

Getting some Chain Loaches in 2 months to sort out the snails, and until then they get picked and flicked.