Snail Control

[stiffler69]

I have thousands of snails and i want rid of them the safest and easiest way possible, the tank currently houses 3 large bn plecs and alot of bn young around 80-100 aswell as 16 young albino corys, some endlers and guppy fry in a trap

The tank is 125 litres its a juwel rio125

Now there is some things on the market that kills them but not sure i want to use this until i move on my young plecs and corys, as ive heard it can be harsh on the tank and filter.

I figuired i could house a clown loach for around 2-3 months but not sure if they will hunt down the young fish in the tank, there is more than enough snails for them to eat i just dont want many fatalities.

So this is my two options does any else have any ideas ive tried manual removal and they just get the numbers back up within a few days so that does not work.

Thanks in advance

 

[5teady_2012]

Interpet no 11 will get rid of those unwanted snails

 

[freerunner416]

I had the same problem

I was told to use some lettuce and put it in the tank at night and remove in the morning!! this really didnt work for me.

What i did was to use (i think its called) snail control. I dosed the tank with it and then over the next couple of days did some heavy water changes getting into the gravel. I emptied and cleaned my external filter. A week later the blighters were back!! I then dosed again and carried out the same task. It worked this time and i think my tank is snail free.

I did overdose the tank slightly and spent two days doing water changes to prevent me losing my discus and starlight plecs!! Fortunately they pulled through.

Goodluck and hope that helps.

craig

 

[loachman]

If you have that many, you are very likely overfeeding or have alot of dying plants. Cut back on feedings and that'll reduce their numbers.

 

[stiffler69]

Thanks for suggestions i will try interpet i think see how that goes

 

[5teady_2012]

If you have that many, you are very likely overfeeding or have alot of dying plants. Cut back on feedings and that'll reduce their numbers.

edited, sorry about that i misread your post.

 

[three-fingers]

No disrespect but this is pointles info..

Snails lay so many eggs and very rarely get touched that they can multiply so rapidly regardless of how much you feed the tank etc..

No disrespect, but it's not pointless, and your info is a bit innacurate . If theres no food to provide energy for the snails, how can they live and reproduce? Most tanks have no problems with there being too many snails...they can only live in large numbers where there is available food for them. That food can be algae, fish food or basically any decomposing organic material.

It's not pointless because if you remove all the snails, whatever they are eating is still going to be there and this could potentially cause water issues.

I would personally avoid anti-snail meds. I've seen a few harm plants, and I seriously doubt they are good for the fish. Another thing is that on top of the fact that whatever the snails were eating is possibly going to be harming your water quality, you now have hundreds of dead snails decomposing in your tank - be prepared for a mini cycle. I have no idea if the meds harm filter bacteria at all, but that's also a possibilty.

I have loaches in my tank that control snails, loaches are amazing for this. I'd suggest a few zebra loaches, but any suitably sized botia-type loaches will do really, here's a list: [URL="http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botia"]http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botia[/URL] .

 

[5teady_2012]

No disrespect but this is pointles info..

Snails lay so many eggs and very rarely get touched that they can multiply so rapidly regardless of how much you feed the tank etc..

No disrespect, but it's not pointless, and your info is a bit innacurate . If theres no food to provide energy for the snails, how can they live and reproduce? Most tanks have no problems with there being too many snails...they can only live in large numbers where there is available food for them. That food can be algae, fish food or basically any decomposing organic material.

It's not pointless because if you remove all the snails, whatever they are eating is still going to be there and this could potentially cause water issues.

I would personally avoid anti-snail meds. I've seen a few harm plants, and I seriously doubt they are good for the fish. Another thing is that on top of the fact that whatever the snails were eating is possibly going to be harming your water quality, you now have hundreds of dead snails decomposing in your tank - be prepared for a mini cycle. I have no idea if the meds harm filter bacteria at all, but that's also a possibilty.

I have loaches in my tank that control snails, loaches are amazing for this. I'd suggest a few zebra loaches, but any suitably sized botia-type loaches will do really, here's a list: <a href="http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botia" target="_blank">http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botia</a> .

I think i misread the reply sorry..

What i meant was, because of the speed snails multiply its hard to stop this, using a snail control like interpet no 11 is much better than cutting bk on feeding as this way you can keep feeding your fish as normal and the med sorts the problem your trying to get under control

When i had a problem with snails (and i was not overfeeding for sure), i use to get rid of loads by giving the gravel a good vacume as well

 

[Gypsyv]

I'm having the same problem with snails, I keep trying the veg trick and pulling it out of the tank covered in snails, and also removing any that I see when I see them (almost nightly I am removing between 50 and a hundred ) but I still can't seem to get them under control.

I remove any dying plant matter daily and feed very sparingly but nothing seems to work. I can't try the meds as I have shrimps (amano and cherry) and wondered if any snail eating fish would also eat my shrimps.

Tank is 210L approx (48 X 15 X 18)

Current stock is

18 Harlequins
5 Male Guppies
4 BN plecs
3 Amano shrimp (I think)
5 cherry shrimp (also a guess)

Any ideas welcome (oh I also do twice weekly 40% water changes with a good gravel clean)

TIA

 

[Nim]

The best 2 ways for snail control are reduced feeding and/or loaches. Medications and snail killers can get rid of snails but if you have them in this numbers then it can do more harm and good as so many dead snails will start fouling the water quality when dead.

Problem however is that you have plenty of fry in the tank and reducing feeding will have a direct and quicker impact on them. Adding loaches will also make then go for the fry first and then the snails

What are you planning to do with the fry? Especially the Bristle nose fry as the guppy fry would really not be worth bothering about as you will continue to have plenty till you have live guppies. First think of what you want to do with them before thinking about getting rid of snails. Once you dont have any fry, it would be fairly easy to get rid of them starting from feeding the fish once or twice a week and adding a couple of small loaches.

If the snails are Malaysian trumpet snails, then it would be very difficult to completely eradicate them short of changing your gravel/filter media and cleaning the tank.

Nim

 

[simonas]

if they are trumpet snails I'll have some off you if you want to post them

 

[Juice]

Well I dunno, my tiger barb just plucked a little snail off the glass and ate it!

 

[Darkstar]

Be careful using meds with plecs, as some are very sensitive to copper based meds. I can't remember if Interpet No11 is or not but I think it might be in which case I wouldn't use it. Try flubenol 15, you'll have to search for it but in my and quite a few other peoples experience it is absolutely fine with all plecs and kills snails dead.

 

[stiffler69]

Hi thanks for all the opinions ive removed around 300 snails this evening only to open my built in juwel filter and find thats where they are hanging about, they were also feeding on a dead endler inside it (died of natural causes) i removed the half eaten fish.

As stated cutting down feeding is not a option when i have around 80-100 bn plecs to feed im currently going through around 6 algae waffers, lots of catfish pellets, flakes and vegitibles every day just feeding them and from what ive seen the snails dont get a look in.

As for the intention of the bn plecs and guppys i do actually sell quite alot of them so im not wanting to jepordise their health for a few snails, ill continue to remove them and get numbers down and it should not be a problem using the interpet 11 as i will be prepared to do a large clean up every day until every dead snail is removed starting with my filter, so if someone is able to confirm it wont actually harm the fish or filter media then i will get some on monday and begin treatment

Thanks everyone keep the ideas coming

Be careful using meds with plecs, as some are very sensitive to copper based meds. I can't remember if Interpet No11 is or not but I think it might be in which case I wouldn't use it. Try flubenol 15, you'll have to search for it but in my and quite a few other peoples experience it is absolutely fine with all plecs and kills snails dead.

Thanks for that ill have a look out for it ive got a warehouse card so it maybe in the warehouse