Snails?

[Kath131]

I have added 4 live plants to my tank recently and today have noticed several tiny black shell like creatures, I took one out to investigate and it is a small snail. Are these harmful? Should I take them out of the tank?

I know these were not there before I added the new plants.

thanks
Kath

 

[tropic_john]

I have added 4 live plants to my tank recently and today have noticed several tiny black shell like creatures, I took one out to investigate and it is a small snail. Are these harmful? Should I take them out of the tank?

I know these were not there before I added the new plants.

thanks
Kath

They will have came in hidden on the live plants as eggs or small snails. They aren't harmful but can be a pest as they soon multiply to hundreds/thousand even in a small tank. I recommend getting some Interpet anti-snail, a pakistan loach [make sure you have agreed to borrow it from a lfs if your tank is too small for one] & finally a spoon or another hard object [to crush the visible snails, sounds gross but the fish eat snails anyway once they have been crushed]

John.

 

[d0tehdew]

Many live plants carry snail eggs.
Once these snails start laying eggs they will multiply quickly so I would remove those plants and those snails immediately.

That is unless you like the snails in the tank and you can manage the breeding of them.

 

[mattlee]

you could also keep the plants and snails and invest in some assasin snails, these snails eat other snails and will keep your snail problem down. they also look pretty cool too.. they will probably cost a couple of quid each but do a great job of eating snails and are stripey

 

[meguro]

Snails need a food source to survive. The larger the population, the larger the food required to support it. Just feed less and you'll only ever have a handful of snails in the tank at any one time.

Either that or the loach (maybe dwarf puffer if it's compatible) idea. I advise against anti-snail quick fixes ie. chemicals etc.

 

[three-fingers]

Simple solution to the snails: look after the tank properly. Then you will have no problems with lots of them.

Anti-snail meds are bad not only for the fish (one dose will have little noticeable effect, but it's just something else for thier liver to strain out), not to mention lots of dead snails rotting around the tank isnt a good thing.

I'm going to post a link to another thread where this was covered, but the most important point is that they are not harmful, you should leave them in. Unless you have a snail phobia or something.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?s=&amp...t&p=2442810