Snail Problem?

[bovrilheid]

Dear All,

this site has been great for my family as we have looked at all the main topics designed for newbies and they have been a great help. we have been with 12 neons now for around 3 weeks and in the past two days I have fished out around 6 snails, which is becoming a pain, because I'm now thinking there more eggs in the plants I used when I started the tank 5 weeks ago. Any suggestions of how to sort this out? I don't particular;ly want to have more snails than fish!!!

thanks
Andy

 

[21rm]

hey there,
clown loaches are supposetly a good way of ridding urself of baby snails, had you plans on gettin any??
or wat had you planned on gettin?
ya cud let a few grow, decide if ya'd like to keep some, and then get loaches to keep from bein over run by babies then

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Bovrilheid. A clown loach is not a good answer for a snail problem unless you have large fish and a very large aquarium. A clown loach gets quite large and they should be kept in groups. Loaches in general are known for eating snails but the best way to control snails is to reduce feeding so that there is no excess food after the fish have eaten. Snails will not reproduce in any numbers unless there is an abundance of food for them to eat. When you consider where they are in terms of being able to find food, if there is no excess, there is no food going to them.

 

[kim03333]

i agree with old man. at one stage i had bad infestation of snails. firstly i just found one or two, so i fished them out, but then more would appear. when i left the lights off there would be about 20 or more attached to the sides of the tanks and it was getting ridiculous. i cut back on feeding drastically (although fish don't need much food i think i was spoiling them). now i still see one or two snails now and again in the tank, but nothing like how it used to be. don't worry if you can't seem to become snail-free, a few in your tank won't hurt.
feed the fish half of what your giving them now and see how that goes.

 

[21rm]

Welcome to the forum Bovrilheid. A clown loach is not a good answer for a snail problem unless you have large fish and a very large aquarium. A clown loach gets quite large and they should be kept in groups. Loaches in general are known for eating snails but the best way to control snails is to reduce feeding so that there is no excess food after the fish have eaten. Snails will not reproduce in any numbers unless there is an abundance of food for them to eat. When you consider where they are in terms of being able to find food, if there is no excess, there is no food going to them.

Ok, this is prob a better option then what id said earlier, I forgot to take into consideration the size of grown loaches.
Reducin feedin is a better option, sorry bout the bad info lol

 

[bovrilheid]

Thanks very much folks