Why Will Only Pest Snails Survive In My Tank?

[deanrar]

There has been an increasing number of pest snails in my tank which i always squash or scoop out but i want some mts (to stir the sand) or apple snails (because i like them) but every time i add a few to the tank within a week they are on their back and if i dont deal with the pests for a while they quickly multiply.
I have in the tank 3 dwarf gourami, 2 mollies, 4 cories and 3 kuhlis (could be a problem for snails?) none of which i have ever seen go near them but i have narrowed it down to 2 possible culprits (bad speeling i think) which was flubenol 15 i used months ago i know can kill snails but i used it over 2 months ago and have done several 50% water changes since (with tetra aquasafe decholrinator) and yet the pest snails are still going.
The other one could be a product called 'Root boosta fe' and i used that about a month or so ago and have researched and found it contains, in varying degrees: Iron, Manganese, Sodium, Magnesium, Zinc, Copper, Molybdenum, Cobalt, Boron, EDTA, DTPA, which i'm guessing are not snail friendly and as it only needs to be pushed in to the substrate once every 3 months so its still going to be there, could this be the problem and if so why do the pest snails keep multiplying and not the other snails? And if this is the problem is there any way to get around it aside from up rooting all my plants and trying to get all traces of the root boosta away?
One last thing a bit of info about my tank: 34gal, planted, sand substrate, chemical levels normal and at 25/77 degrees.
Any help will be much appreciated cheers.

 

[GoldLenny]

I had never heard of "Root Boosta Fe" so I did a Google on it and only got 13 hits... most to shopping sites like eBay and a couple to a brand new forum, started in Jan. 2007, where they admin of the forum seems to be promoting this as a product he/she "invented". I'm not sure you should be using something that may still be experimental or at least not very well tested. Almost nothing gets only 13 hits on Google.

How did you come across this very new, what appears to be home-made product?

 

[deanrar]

was on ebay and it has helped my plants and i only used it the once

 

[bare bottom]

I asked flubenol how long it takes before adding snails after treatment and they said with 50% water changes and a half life of 7 days i think they said then after 3 weeks introducing snails should not be a problem. I want mts too but am clearing a pest problem.

I think it might be something else, what I don't know.

 

[three-fingers]

Kuhli loaches love eating snails, and are good at it.

What's your pH like in the tank? I'm guessing it would be alkaline and fine for snails because you have mollies, but you never know...

 

[vancouver]

Pest snails are very resilient.. are they eating your plants? or do you just not like them?

 

[deanrar]

i just don't like pest snails as they serve no real purpose in the tank and i want the mts to stir up substrate that is hard to reach inbetween plants

 

[vancouver]

The pest snails should do that too.. Not as well as the MTS, but they should be somewhat amongst the substrate.