little snails everywhere

nfish · 11-23-2006, 02:16 AM

can anyone tell me why, an how little snail like creatures have appeared in my tank out of thinn air???

gm333 · 11-23-2006, 06:57 AM

They usually hichike on live plants.

Jay · 11-23-2006, 07:11 AM

The eggs can also "pass through" a newly acquired fish.

Jay

nfish · 11-23-2006, 02:49 PM

I had live plants a while ago, not now. how long will the eggs take to hatch? no new fish in the tank.

Tommy Gun · 11-24-2006, 11:57 AM

Many types of snails can reproduce very very fast, either because they can breed so often or because they can have hundreds of eggs hatch each time. Usually, from what I have seen from forums like this, when you do not know the type of snail or did not intentially put the snail(s) in the tank, they are the type that can quickly take a tank over and become a problem relatively quick.

There are a few good ways to get rid of them...keeping in mind that I do not generally like to add a bunch of chemicals and medicines in my tank thanks to what I have learned from others on this site. Each depened a bit on how well your tank is cycled as well as how large your tank is.

The first option I like to suggest is to think about adding a fish that will thrive on eating the snails. I like Clown Loaches for this reason since they have quite a taste for the little snails and can usually reduce the population to nearly 0 in a month or so. The Clown Loach is going to prefer to be in a group of three to five though so this isnt usually a good method for people with really small tanks. However, even though they can grow to over a foot long, it takes them years and years to get to this size and so many people 'get away' with keeping them in their tanks for a long time. I also like to remind people that once the clown loaches have done the job you needed them to do, there is nothing wrong with returning them to an LFS for store credit or even to just 'donate' them for free. They are certainly worth the price for a snail free tank.

Another method would be to try to trap them in a small glass jar (clear is better usually) with some cucumber in it. Put the jar and bait in the tank just before you turn off the lights for the night. Before you turn on the lights in the morning, take the jar out of the tank and rinse the snails off in a sink or outside. Keep repeating this until you do not have any snails left. This method works really well when you do not have any fish in the tank because you can control the amount of food the snails have and they are generally left having only the cucumber in the jar to feed from. It is importnat to note though that it may take a couple of days for the snails to realize that the food is in the jar and start to gather in it. This method is slower, but I think in your case could really be a viable way to get rid of them.

Some people may also say that you can simply smash the snails but there are two major drawbacks to this...1.) You could be releasing more eggs that are collected in the snails when you smash them. 2.) Some snails, especially ramshorn, can cut you with their shells, leading to a good chance of getting a secondary infection.

There are chemicals and other products out there that will get rid of the snails, and I admit they may be the faster method of getting rid of them. However, most of them put copper into your tank which severly reduces your abilty to keep snails that you would like to keep or other inverts in the tank later on. Otherwise, these chemicals quickly reduce your water quality and bring other problems that you just dont want or need. Also, you should keep in mind that if you use a chemical to kill the snails, your tank would then be full of dead snails and you will have all of them decaying in your water which just plain old leads to water quality issues.

dlee9707 · 11-25-2006, 07:11 AM

definetly use clown loaches or a trap. i've heard that you can just put pennies into your tank and that little bit of copper will kill off snails but decaying snails as said above will destroy your water

Tommy Gun · 11-25-2006, 01:57 PM

dlee,

I am sorry that I have to disagree with the whole penny idea since pennies are not really made of copper any more and the super small amount of copper in them wouldn't put a dent in even 5 gallons of water, in my opinion. If a penny was made completely or even half of copper, it would be worth much more than a penny these days (sad, isn't it?)

Just wanted to throw that bit of useless information at you! I do agree with the loaches or trapping methods like you as well and thanks for supporting me with that.

Jay · 11-25-2006, 03:04 PM

Yeah the penny thing is a myth. I'm with Tom on the clown loaches.

I am here to tell you that a pair of clown loaches will, in a few weeks time and often sooner, eliminate your snail problem.

Regards.
Jay

Sarah84 · 11-25-2006, 03:47 PM

I had a massive snail problem in my 10 gallon, and it was too small to put Clown loaches in..
so I put 1 Kuhli loach (although they should be kept in multiples) they grow to 3" and my snail problem disappeared in no time. I was picking snails out daily, but within a few weeks of having the loach my snail problem was gone! (accept for a few that were too big already for him to eat)

nfish · 11-28-2006, 01:37 AM

thanks to everyone who posted. tomarrow I'm getting a few clown loaches. I have a 30 gal tank would three loaches to many?