Trap For This Type Of Snail?

[Primous]

I guess my situation is not dissimilar from others but heres my little aquatic predicament. To begin with, I know how they got here via some java moss I purchased some months ago but these little things are becoming a huge problem and there numbers seem to multiply by the week. There poops embeds itself into the leaves of my planted tank as tiny black dots and to me, looks real unsightly.

I've tried the lettuce leaf over night method but that nets roughly 2-3 so it's literally not worth the lettuce leaf lol. Out of frustration I'm even willing to consider a chemical fix providing others have experience with the particular brand. Below is a pic of these little blighters. I don't know the specific species type but they move with their shells on their side if that makes sense?

I'm willing to try any methods suggested just so long as I can get rid of these things.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Do not feed your fish for a few days (3-4) and crush any snail you see. the fish will eat the dead snail as a snack, and when you do feed the fish after 3-4 days, feed only as much as they can consume in a minute. I have been doing this for a week and I am seeing improvements. The fish LOOVE the crushed snails

 

[BigbruiserAl]

cut back on the feeding, the snails cannot reproduce without food they do not eat poo, if there are breeding your are overfeeding there is no other way for snails live/breed

 

[This Old Spouse]

Yep, what they said. Cutting down the food is the answer.

 

[Primous]

Thanks and so much appreciated for the quick responses but I'm going to disagree. Not in the I know it all sense but more of a hobbyist difference of opinion. My reason is this. Early on in the hobby I made the mistake of overfeeding and as a result I got planaria. After researching and understand the issue I followed the plan described above. Three days no food and then feeding only as much as the fish can consume within a minute. For me, if there is food on the substrate for more than 60 seconds I have overfed and cut back even more the next day. I also feed in a particular way. I wet the food with tank water and then drop into an uplanted/bear section of my aquarium (front right hand side.) so that the food isn't dispersed around the tank and to make sure of this, I turn of my ehiem filter.

So in short I'm extremely careful of overfeeding an have also tried the method above. I also have been turning on the light before work and picking these little ^""""" off the class for weeks and still no joy!

 

[BigbruiserAl]

Think you missed the point there is not a case to agree/disagree is fact for snails. There is no way possible for snails to mutilply without a food source, it just can not happen. Having a few snails in the tank is a good thing, but if there mutilplying to a point where you notice it they are eating a foos source from somewhere, your job it now to find it

 

[Fish are friends]

I had a similar issue with baby ramshorn snails. I used a large piece of cucumber cause it's easier to remove the snails then put the cucumber back in the tank. The other advantage I have is it's a planted quarintine tank so I turned off the heater and this seemed to work. The other way is an assassin snail. Good luck.

 

[Primous]

Think you missed the point there is not a case to agree/disagree is fact for snails. There is no way possible for snails to mutilply without a food source, it just can not happen. Having a few snails in the tank is a good thing, but if there mutilplying to a point where you notice it they are eating a foos source from somewhere, your job it now to find it

They are eating algae on the plants. I was hoping I'd get some tips on a trap that would have a stronger pull than the algae on the plants. The algae is minimal, no outbreak of any particular type, but enough to sustain them.

 

[This Old Spouse]

If you think you're not overfeeding, then get some assassin snails.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

ok so you know the food soucrce now, now why is there enough alage on the plants to expand a tank od snails? so maybe you have your lights on too long or the flow in the tank is not enough?

 

[Primous]

I don't have a specific algae problem or outbreak so to speak. My aquarium is a dirt / walstead setup where balance is pretty much the aim. I'm using a pressurized cylinder setup and have an ehiem 2215 and also an internal pump both adjusted to make sure my plants sway gently to give a visual reference of the amount of flow in my aquarium. But again just as the members on theplantedtank forum such as Tom Barr and Diane Walstead state no aquarium is 100% free of algae.

The most amount of algae I have is on my amazon sword. Here's a pic I just took of it. The white doots on the wood are courtesy of my nerite and the white specs on the leaves are oxygen bubbles/pearling.

 

[pkppv]

personally, i put a small plastic cup/container in the bottom of my tank and put an algae wafer or two in it. By morning it was full of snails, and i simply removed it and discarded them. I repeated a few times and my tanks was clean of snails. IF you have lots of fish that would enjoy algae wafers and eat them before the snails can, make the container off limits to fish by putting something over the top of the container, or having the container on its side with the opening in the corner. Just make sure the opening is quite small, too small for fish. It worked for me, so i would recommend it for anyone.

 

[Primous]

personally, i put a small plastic cup/container in the bottom of my tank and put an algae wafer or two in it. By morning it was full of snails, and i simply removed it and discarded them. I repeated a few times and my tanks was clean of snails. IF you have lots of fish that would enjoy algae wafers and eat them before the snails can, make the container off limits to fish by putting something over the top of the container, or having the container on its side with the opening in the corner. Just make sure the opening is quite small, too small for fish. It worked for me, so i would recommend it for anyone.

Thanks a bunch for the idea. I tried it last night but it only netted about 4 snails so I called the lfs and they've agreed to hold an assain snail for me. But perhaps I've been a smidgen too hasty lol. I say that because after reading through and looking at vids of assassin snails on youtube it seems they are more equiped to tackle snails which are a lot larger is size.

These little things in my aquarium are all shell lol

 

[This Old Spouse]

The snails have to be big enough for the assassin snail to reach in the thing that looks like an elephant's trunk into the snail shell, so if the snails are so small that can't happen then the assassins will just wait for them to grow up a bit.

 

[Primous]

Just my luck.

Though in other related news, I found the food source!