Snail Infestation

[Bazaman]

ok I have snail infestation and i don't want to use salts because i have cories and they react adversly to salt. any suggestions on how to get rid of the snails with out adversly afeecting any of my fish.

3 types of cories, harlequin rasboras, guppies, red platies, and 2 common plecos.

thank you.

 

[OldMan47]

If you never expect to try to keep invertebrates, snails can be easily killed using copper. The problem with using it is that the dosage must be correct to avoid affecting fish and the tank will be almost permanently unable to support a stocking of invertebrates.

 

[Cazgar]

Weigh down a piece of lettuce overnight.
In the morning there should be snails on it that you can remove.
You could get some assassin snails, but they will take time to get the numbers down.
Cut down on how much you feed your fish, as the less food the snails have, the less they will breed

 

[Bazaman]

its not overfeeding that is the casue of the infestation, my tank had been sitting in front of a window with no curtian for several months and i got a bad alage problem and with the alage probelm came the snails. the tank has been in a new location where i can control the light now and the alage is almost gone but the snails are still coming now like crazy. when i do feed the fish the food is usually completely gone within about 30 mins if i use tablets or veggies for bottom feeders if i used flakes 15 mins or less. so i think the snails are due to the alage boom that happened. i will try the lettuce method because i do want to get shrimp later this year hopefully.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[OldMan47]

Chances are good that the algae did indeed provide the food surplus for your snail population explosion. The lettuce trick works but is only a control measure, not a removal method. To actually kill off the snails it will take more than that. To merely control the population, the lettuce trick will definitely help.

 

[Bazaman]

ok so if i moved my cories to a new tank(it would be cycled) could i use one of thesnail killing salts without hurting the rest of the fish and would i abe able to move my cories back into the community tank? and if so when would be safe for them to be moved back in?

 

[OldMan47]

Check the "salts" that you are considering. If they say the active ingredient is cuprous ..... or cupric ......, they are copper and my warning still applies. The dosage given will be safe for cories or any other fish but must be measured accurately. The dose to kill sensitive fish is only about double what it will take to kill the snails. I have used a product called Had-a-Snail in the US and it worked fine. Unfortunately they did not warn of the impact on inverts in the future, so I now have a couple of tanks that can never be used for things like shrimp.

 

[Bazaman]

ok thank you for your help as soon as i get paid it is too the lfs.

 

[Bazaman]

oh another question to do with the snails. i have 3 types of snails in the tank 2 types are the ones i want gone. there is one type i want to keep, they over populate(or atleast have not. and they stay on the bottom, so i am going to move them to a different tank. how long before i can safly move them back into my main tank if i use a snail killing agent?

 

[Gilli]

Just pick the snails out and if you are not squeemish crush them and drop them back in - fish love them and its free fish food! Keep picking them out and scrape off any eggs you see and the population will soon disappear - trust me ive done it and its much better than using chemicals

 

[Aqua Tom]

Assassin Snails,

 

[OldMan47]

You can't move them back, that is why I gave that caution.