Best way to trap and get rid of snails im infested at this point!

[Essjay]

There's another snail trap in post #4 of this thread

What are these bugs/snails/things in my tank!

Hello fishfourms! I have recently had a infestation of these "things" in my tank. I first noticed them about a week ago, I tried to remove them all, but now their population has exploded and THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. I couldn't take good pictures of them but I hope a description of them will help...

www.fishforums.net

 

[GaryE]

Jeeeeeeeeeeez.... That is A TON of snails... Most I've seen in a tank ever.
If you don't have any shrimp in the tank or snails that you WANT. Get a copper based aquarium additive and use it. It will kill off all the snails. Just be sure to keep up with large water changes to avoid an ammonia spike or any other issues

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Copper gets into a tank is is tough to remove - it takes a lot more than water changes. You might as well strip the tank. It can be used as a med of last resort for some parasites, but to remove snails? It's never a good idea to poison a tank - biocides kill a lot more than the target animal, always.

 

[Rocky998]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Copper gets into a tank is is tough to remove - it takes a lot more than water changes. You might as well strip the tank. It can be used as a med of last resort for some parasites, but to remove snails? It's never a good idea to poison a tank - biocides kill a lot more than the target animal, always.

Oh... I never knew that. I thought it would just target the snails and be completely fine and easy to remove with water changes

 

[Deleted member 149562]

I employ a group of around 6 to 10 Assassin Snails in my aquariums.

Pesky pest snails don't like Assassins but Assassins absolutely love pesky pest snails......the only side effect of Assassins is that once they have pounced and munched the pesky pest snails, they leave a trail of empty shells on the substrate to hoover up.

Once the bulk of the pesky pest snails have been munched, the Assassins lurk and loiter under the surface of the substrate, then pounce on any unsuspecting pesky pest snail and munch it.

I say "pounce"...well they do that at a reasonable speed for a snail. They get the job done and apart from littering the substrate with empty shells, they are pretty clean and tidy and generally get along with everyone else in the aquarium....my bolshy Betta, Fred, did get a wee bit upset and tried to beat the Assassins up but one of the smacked him on his nose and he hasn't bothered them since.

 

[Essjay]

I never knew that. I thought it would just target the snails and be completely fine and easy to remove with water changes

Copper seems to penetrate everything in a tank and then leach out slowly for months.

 

[Kyshiara]

Try an assasin snail? Then you could sell it or give it away once it has eaten them.

 

[LostBear]

I employ a group of around 6 to 10 Assassin Snails in my aquariums.

Pesky pest snails don't like Assassins but Assassins absolutely love pesky pest snails......the only side effect of Assassins is that once they have pounced and munched the pesky pest snails, they leave a trail of empty shells on the substrate to hoover up.

Once the bulk of the pesky pest snails have been munched, the Assassins lurk and loiter under the surface of the substrate, then pounce on any unsuspecting pesky pest snail and munch it.

I say "pounce"...well they do that at a reasonable speed for a snail. They get the job done and apart from littering the substrate with empty shells, they are pretty clean and tidy and generally get along with everyone else in the aquarium....my bolshy Betta, Fred, did get a wee bit upset and tried to beat the Assassins up but one of the smacked him on his nose and he hasn't bothered them since.

Problem with assassins is that they lay eggs all over, and even if you take them out, and replace them with Nerites (who doesn't love Nerites?) those eggs will hatch and they'll go after your nice snails.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Only way to get rid is to either pick them out by hand (good luck with that) or use a trap...some good ones have already been suggested, don't use chemicals

 

[Colin_T]

Considering the species of snail involved, and the fact they are out in huge numbers during the day (they are nocturnal snails), I would scrap the tank and start again.

Get a clean storage container and fill it with dechlorinated water. Let it aerate for 24 hours and then catch the fish out and put them in it. Try not to drip aquarium water into the container or you could transfer some of the snail larvae across.

When all the fish are out, drain the aquarium and wash it all outside on the lawn. Do the filter, heater, ornaments, everything except the sand. I would throw the sand on the garden and get new stuff.

When everything has been cleaned, add some new sand and fill the tank up with dechlorinated water. Let the water aerate and filter for 24 hours, then move the fish back into it.

-------------------
Copper won't kill those snails unless they stay open long enough to be exposed to it. And they are quick to close their operculum and can wait it out for days.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Oh... I never knew that. I thought it would just target the snails and be completely fine and easy to remove with water changes

Yup. Sadly there have been people who have bought second hand tanks, just plain glass box aquariums, cleaned them out and set them up, then been frustrated and upset because all their shrimp and snails keep dying. Eventually figuring out that the previous owner must have used a copper containing med at some point, and enough traces of the copper were still clinging to the glass and silicone that it killed all their inverts. Since I keep shrimp and buy tanks second hand, it's something I keep in mind, and useful to know for cases of mystery invert deaths, or after you've used a med that contains invert killing levels of copper.

Seachem make a product called Cuprisorb that is meant to remove those traces of copper once you add it your filter and run it for a while. I have some that I plan to use when I set up my new 63g, just in case.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Whoops, I forgot to answer the OP, I'm sorry!

I have MTS too, and occasionally they have a population boom that reminds me to cut back on the feeding and up my maintenance cleaning. They have their pros and cons, like all snails. I appreciate that they help to break down organics and keep my substrate turned over, and that when they have a population boom, it's my own fault and like a sort of alarm system that I'm over feeding, under cleaning, or both.

So I've picked up a few habits to knock their numbers back down when that happens. When they're climbing the glass like that is perfect. Have a large fine net handy when you first turn on the tank light, then simply sweep the net upwards against the glass to knock them all into the net. Repeat all the way around the glass until no more snails on the glass.

The sand substrate in your tank looks as though it's pretty fine? If so, that's much easier than if you have gravel, and since the tank is very open, even easier! Use a net with larger holes this time, and scoop batches of sand into the net, and sift the sand like you would sift the lumps out of flour. With the right sized holes in your net, the sand returns to the tank and you're left with a net full of snails. Remove, crush and bin snails, repeat until the tank looks like a tank again. Then sort out your feeding amounts so you don't have thousands of the blighters

 

[StevenF]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Copper gets into a tank is is tough to remove - it takes a lot more than water changes. You might as well strip the tank. It can be used as a med of last resort for some parasites, but to remove snails? It's never a good idea to poison a tank - biocides kill a lot more than the target animal, always.

Ccopper is not as dangerous as people believe. Most homes today have copper pipes in the walls. This means any tank is going to have 0.01 ppm to 1 ppm. (the legal limit in the US is 1.3ppm).Most tanks will have 0.01 to 0.03ppm of copper. I make my own fertilizer with copper in it and 0.02ppm has no effect on snails or shrimp in my tank. Most fertilizers dose the tank to 0.001ppm but your plants and shrimp really need 0.006ppm to do well. Most copper tests on the market cannot detect these low levels. So most people don't know how much copper is in their tank . So when shrimp don't do well copper is often blamed without any test to prove it. A piece of copper pipe is not going to do any harm.

Copper medications are a complexly different story.

 

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@Brodie33 What's the story with that gardneri in your avatar ?