Snail population

[Talisman]

So bought some new plants, and found a couple of small snails. Dug them out and binned them.

turned the tank light on the other night and saw quite a few dots on the glass, like little suckers. plus a couple of snails on the rocks (not a cocktail).

So i assume the dots were baby snails bugger that means they breed quicker than i can dig them out.

are these harmful to the tank and fish, or just normal and harmless.???

 

[FishDan]

Snails are incapable of directly harming a fish. So in that respect they are perfectly safe. Some snails eat plants, some do not. That would likely be the only "harm" they would do to your tank. Personally I think snails are great additions to an aquarium, and both my tanks have some snails (mystery snails and/or Malaysian trumpet snails). The key to controlling their population is in not overfeeding. Snails will breed in direct proportion to the amount of food available.

\Dan

 

[Def]

I have ramshorn snails in my tank (the type that hitchhike on plants), and they're welcome to stay. They eat all the algae at the substrate-line that I can't scrape off with a scraper or toothbrush.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I also like snails in tanks, make it a better environment but they can overrun your tank a bit. What you can do is to put a piece of lettuce in the tank and turn the light off. A couple of hours later turn on the light and the lettuce will be covered in snails, take the lettuce out. Taaa Daaa!

I haven't ever needed to do this but some do. I would avoid using chemicals to kill them though, it's not necessary and can be seen as cruel.

 

[Talisman]

Crackin idea Cheese, thanks.

 

[fishdudein]

Most of my tanks either have (mostly) pond snails, or trumpet snails. Whenever the pond snails get out of hand, I always just crush a few of them. Fish love it, food doesn't get any fresher than this!

 

[bugsy66]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents worth. All the above recommendations are great. They are harmless and now that you have them they are impossible to get rid of.

Please, please do not us that stuff called "snail away" or anything like it. I did and it killed my whole tank of fish at the time. The snails lived.

Crushing them against the glass for the fish is a good idea, also if you get to many you can always put a piece of cooked shrimp on a string at night when the lights go out and in the morning before the lights come on carefully take our your piece of shrimp with a whole whopping pile of snails on it

Have fun...bugsy

 

[JustinSane]

Please, please do not us that stuff called "snail away" or anything like it. I did and it killed my whole tank of fish at the time. The snails lived.

Yep, don't use em'. Try the lettuce trick or just regular bottom food for catfish, a lot easier.

Crushing them against the glass for the fish is a good idea, also if you get to many you can always put a piece of cooked shrimp on a string at night when the lights go out and in the morning before the lights come on carefully take our your piece of shrimp with a whole whopping pile of snails on it

Have fun...bugsy

Crushing is good sometimes, though if you haven't got too much fish, the dead snails might not get eaten and thus start rotting and needlessly increasing the bio-load of your tank (ie. the water might start getting bad, nitrites might spike if the sudden load increase is really big).
Also regarding the malysian trumpet snails; the shell of full grown specimens is really hard, don't even try crushing them against the glass; it would do more damage to the glass than the snail, use the food trick

 

[RYO]

i use snails as an excuse to buy more loaches

 

[Ob1]

agree with RYO

 

[ingo_1978]

You can send then to me, so I can feed them to my puffer!!

 

[jflowers]

I could also use some for my SAP's. I am currently trying to breed them (have five golden and six black apple snails, not sure if they produce cross breeds, but They are the same species so maybe) in my smaller tank along with river shrimp. I did have a big clutch of eggs around six weeks ago, but they turned out to be duds.

Anyway back to your post, I like to have them in the tank as they eat uneaten food and clean a bit of algae. If you dont like em, the lettuce or shrimp ideas work very well, I have used cucumber too.

Jon

 

[3fsh]

Snails rock! Not only do they eat algae off the walls of your tank... (my 2.5 gallon is spotless) they also eat leftover food and... dead fish. I put some feeder guppies in the 2.5 gallon with them and one died from the stress. I was too depressed to "fish it out" so I went to bed. This morning it was gone! Wala! Dead fish removal service! Kinda gross... but handy at the same time.

 

[jflowers]

hehe 3fsh, snails will also eat dead snails, think they would eat anything if it moved slower than they did. If you have ever seen one crawling up the glass eating algae you see thier teeth which are as hard as thier shells.

Jon