Happy day...I would like to make...a confession. My heart and soul have blackened like toast in the fire with the crushing, crushing, crushing of each snail. The wanton wreckage of snail carcasses littering the substrate would disgust even the most pious members of the Church, even though they too have a rich history of visiting violence upon the masses. And so one wonders...is there a snail Ghandi, exhorting his fellow snails to climb up the walls and throw themselves into the maws of the tweezer, like so many Indians did during their quest to be free from the British? Will the snails climb so high and in such numbers that my hands will become arthritic with the endless effort of crushing? Oh lawks'a'mercy, the crushing goes on for hours, ceasing only with the falling of the sun and the turning off of the office lights.
Do the best-laid plans of mice & men....
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eatyourpeas
Fish Herder
As I retreat to my monastery I shall pray for you, my son. May the souls of the crushed ones enhance the flavors of escargot salads all over the world. You shall be redeemed as the song of footsteps on the shells may sing to the heavens. Amen. ?
I'm late to the party, but I've read conflicting reports on whether panacur-C kills snails or not. Might be worth a try at a "heftier" dose and then doing 18 water changes afterwards.
Another thing I've been thinking, is that when you get plants, you're supposed to do a bleach dip to get rid of the snails and hitchhikers on them. What if you "bleach dip" your tank? It would kill your cycle and you would have to remove any snails you want to keep first, but it should kill the snails without decimating the plants and you have a way of neutralizing the chlorine afterwards. You'd still have to do 18 water changes since you'd probably spike ammonia from all the dead invisible snail carcasses, but it's a thought...?
Another thing I've been thinking, is that when you get plants, you're supposed to do a bleach dip to get rid of the snails and hitchhikers on them. What if you "bleach dip" your tank? It would kill your cycle and you would have to remove any snails you want to keep first, but it should kill the snails without decimating the plants and you have a way of neutralizing the chlorine afterwards. You'd still have to do 18 water changes since you'd probably spike ammonia from all the dead invisible snail carcasses, but it's a thought...?
Happy day...in the intervening days, I dropped in 30 blue dream shrimp and two amano shrimp, and picked up the Tweezers of Pinching Doom. It is also a dirt tank, so it would have needed a complete rebuild. But I do thank you for taking the time to share the thoughts. I will do cucumber bowls as well as crushing their heads.
eatyourpeas
Fish Herder
I can hear the crunch all the way out here!
First off, I have to inquire whether you're a writer or not because your posts are wonderful. You certainly have a way with words and I thoroughly enjoyed your writing style.
Is there a particular reason that you don't want the bladder/pond snails? I've always embraced them, but I enjoy the free clean up crew and natural look and I've never had an issue with them munching on my plants. They seem to come and go in cycles in my personal experience. I'll see one or two and then a week later my tanks will be crawling with them. A few months later there will be a mass exodus of them and I'm left with hundreds of empty shells littering my substrate, which are easy to pick up/siphon up. A few weeks later the cycle repeats itself.
Is there a particular reason that you don't want the bladder/pond snails? I've always embraced them, but I enjoy the free clean up crew and natural look and I've never had an issue with them munching on my plants. They seem to come and go in cycles in my personal experience. I'll see one or two and then a week later my tanks will be crawling with them. A few months later there will be a mass exodus of them and I'm left with hundreds of empty shells littering my substrate, which are easy to pick up/siphon up. A few weeks later the cycle repeats itself.
Happy day...thank you for the kind words. As a child (please ignore my wife's petulant insistence that I still am), my parents encouraged avid reading of fun and exciting books, and we had a library with hundreds of science fiction and fantasy novels as well as a treasure trove of psychoanalytic theory. I had a hard time writing as a lad, though, until 10th grade when I received (ok, I was told I had to go) a most wonderful tutor who always served liver pate on crackers during our lessons. She also shattered my idea that women don't smoke cigars. And by "women," I'm referring to that gender in the classical way, not the way it is used presently. But I digress.
In college I had an English teacher who further helped me polish my writing, mostly by helping me to write to the audience. Which made me wonder...how did I suddenly become a member of an audience? And along the way, I stumbled upon three writers who set me on a style: CJ Cherryh, Douglas Adams and, most poignantly, Terry Pratchett.
To answer your question, although I am not a writer by trade or profession, I did do an unpaid 7-year stint as a monthly columnist in a medical trade newspaper with a distribution of over 250k. My editrix held me to 750 words, and of course no contractions. The stream of clients that came from writing and speaking made the effort quite worth it. What I learned from the aforementioned authors, Pratchett in particular, was how to misuse words by changing their context, and by so doing, altering perspective so that I could slip ideas into readers' heads.
For example, I am a financial planner that specializes in accounting and tax, an aspect of life that is hated by all. And yet for public presentations I dress up as Lord Hapitax, Master of Calculating Keep, and speak in a brogue-tongue from 22 accents, including three that haven't even been invented yet, and for good reason. Why else would someone voluntarily want to learn about why we do what we do? I refer to our clients as victims, and for those who try to abuse their business' funds by buying personal items, I wield the Paddle of Pecuniary Punishment. So when I have to tell a client that they owe $140k a quarter, well...grace and style and shame and a healthy dose of holding clients accountable for their voting history all sort of make the medicine go down.
As for the snails, I prefer an unobscured view of my pretties. I have a 15g loaded with Malaysian trumpet snails, and I'm always trying to see the little tetras, or the betta, or the shrimp in that tank. It requires a lot of head-bobbing and weaving, or going in with a scraper to knock the MTS off, especially if I want to take a picture. And yes, there is the same cycle as you described. The assassin snails can't keep the population down as their probiscus is too large for the shells of the small snails, so the cycle continues. But for this particular 10-gallon tank, I have resolved myself to letting be whatever it will be. It is a tank of inverts, and snails are that, so we shall see what happens. I also spoke to the lady who provided the gorgeous blue snails and she said that it would not be unusual for them to have come pregnant/gravid. In the first month of the tank, I went from zero snails to hundreds. Time will tell if they are mystery, bladder, or pond snails, and nature will take its course, just like it should in a Walstad-method tank.
I see that you are in Ohio. As a fellow Buckeye, I would gladly mail you a dozen or two MTS if you like, at no charge, just so that you too can enjoy them I will even throw in red root floaters, frogbit and duckweed because they also grow like mad. DM me if you like
In college I had an English teacher who further helped me polish my writing, mostly by helping me to write to the audience. Which made me wonder...how did I suddenly become a member of an audience? And along the way, I stumbled upon three writers who set me on a style: CJ Cherryh, Douglas Adams and, most poignantly, Terry Pratchett.
To answer your question, although I am not a writer by trade or profession, I did do an unpaid 7-year stint as a monthly columnist in a medical trade newspaper with a distribution of over 250k. My editrix held me to 750 words, and of course no contractions. The stream of clients that came from writing and speaking made the effort quite worth it. What I learned from the aforementioned authors, Pratchett in particular, was how to misuse words by changing their context, and by so doing, altering perspective so that I could slip ideas into readers' heads.
For example, I am a financial planner that specializes in accounting and tax, an aspect of life that is hated by all. And yet for public presentations I dress up as Lord Hapitax, Master of Calculating Keep, and speak in a brogue-tongue from 22 accents, including three that haven't even been invented yet, and for good reason. Why else would someone voluntarily want to learn about why we do what we do? I refer to our clients as victims, and for those who try to abuse their business' funds by buying personal items, I wield the Paddle of Pecuniary Punishment. So when I have to tell a client that they owe $140k a quarter, well...grace and style and shame and a healthy dose of holding clients accountable for their voting history all sort of make the medicine go down.
As for the snails, I prefer an unobscured view of my pretties. I have a 15g loaded with Malaysian trumpet snails, and I'm always trying to see the little tetras, or the betta, or the shrimp in that tank. It requires a lot of head-bobbing and weaving, or going in with a scraper to knock the MTS off, especially if I want to take a picture. And yes, there is the same cycle as you described. The assassin snails can't keep the population down as their probiscus is too large for the shells of the small snails, so the cycle continues. But for this particular 10-gallon tank, I have resolved myself to letting be whatever it will be. It is a tank of inverts, and snails are that, so we shall see what happens. I also spoke to the lady who provided the gorgeous blue snails and she said that it would not be unusual for them to have come pregnant/gravid. In the first month of the tank, I went from zero snails to hundreds. Time will tell if they are mystery, bladder, or pond snails, and nature will take its course, just like it should in a Walstad-method tank.
I see that you are in Ohio. As a fellow Buckeye, I would gladly mail you a dozen or two MTS if you like, at no charge, just so that you too can enjoy them I will even throw in red root floaters, frogbit and duckweed because they also grow like mad. DM me if you like
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Happy day...thank you for the kind words. As a child (please ignore my wife's petulant insistence that I still am), my parents encouraged avid reading of fun and exciting books, and we had a library with hundreds of science fiction and fantasy novels as well as a treasure trove of psychoanalytic theory. I had a hard time writing as a lad, though, until 10th grade when I received (ok, I was told I had to go) a most wonderful tutor who always served liver pate on crackers during our lessons. She also shattered my idea that women don't smoke cigars. And by "women," I'm referring to that gender in the classical way, not the way it is used presently. But I digress.
In college I had an English teacher who further helped me polish my writing, mostly by helping me to write to the audience. Which made me wonder...how did I suddenly become a member of an audience? And along the way, I stumbled upon three writers who set me on a style: CJ Cherryh, Douglas Adams and, most poignantly, Terry Pratchett.
To answer your question, although I am not a writer by trade or profession, I did do an unpaid 7-year stint as a monthly columnist in a medical trade newspaper with a distribution of over 250k. My editrix held me to 750 words, and of course no contractions. The stream of clients that came from writing and speaking made the effort quite worth it. What I learned from the aforementioned authors, Pratchett in particular, was how to misuse words by changing their context, and by so doing, altering perspective so that I could slip ideas into readers' heads.
For example, I am a financial planner that specializes in accounting and tax, an aspect of life that is hated by all. And yet for public presentations I dress up as Lord Hapitax, Master of Calculating Keep, and speak in a brogue-tongue from 22 accents, including three that haven't even been invented yet, and for good reason. Why else would someone voluntarily want to learn about why we do what we do? I refer to our clients as victims, and for those who try to abuse their business' funds by buying personal items, I wield the Paddle of Pecuniary Punishment. So when I have to tell a client that they owe $140k a quarter, well...grace and style and shame and a healthy dose of holding clients accountable for their voting history all sort of make the medicine go down.
As for the snails, I prefer an unobscured view of my pretties. I have a 15g loaded with Malaysian trumpet snails, and I'm always trying to see the little tetras, or the betta, or the shrimp in that tank. It requires a lot of head-bobbing and weaving, or going in with a scraper to knock the MTS off, especially if I want to take a picture. And yes, there is the same cycle as you described. The assassin snails can't keep the population down as their probiscus is too large for the shells of the small snails, so the cycle continues. But for this particular 10-gallon tank, I have resolved myself to letting be whatever it will be. It is a tank of inverts, and snails are that, so we shall see what happens. I also spoke to the lady who provided the gorgeous blue snails and she said that it would not be unusual for them to have come pregnant/gravid. In the first month of the tank, I went from zero snails to hundreds. Time will tell if they are mystery, bladder, or pond snails, and nature will take its course, just like it should in a Walstad-method tank.
I see that you are in Ohio. As a fellow Buckeye, I would gladly mail you a dozen or two MTS if you like, at no charge, just so that you too can enjoy them I will even throw in red root floaters, frogbit and duckweed because they also grow like mad. DM me if you like
Yet again you paint such a vivid picture with your words. I am surprised that you're from Ohio because I am reading your posts in a British accent for some reason.
Where are you from in Ohio? I'm not originally from Ohio, but I've lived here for 8 of the past 11 years since my wife and I moved to the lower 48. We live in Holmes County, about an hour and a half northeast of Columbus.
Retired Viking
Fish Connoisseur
I do the catch and release program. I catch them and then release them into my RES turtle tank and my turtles do the dirty work. 
ClownLurch
Fish Gatherer
There’s hundreds of British accents. Which one?
Happy day...both Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are from the UK, so I am certain that the lilt is written in there. And @ClownLurch is correct, there are hundreds based on neighborhoods and the migratory patterns of breeding-age adults. Sometimes I ask people to read what I write with a Norwegian accent because it is far more exotic.
@Retired Viking we have a pond behind the office and I could totally scrape them off and toss them there. That exposes me to all sorts of amazing wildlife, because where I live, we are not top of the foodchain. I will say that the snails certainly move around quite a bit, zooming to and fro, as much as a snail can zoom, and the adult blues love the boiled carrots I toss in every few days.
@Flushable Pets I was born in Cincy, lived in Maryland for many of my formative years and now live in Florida, although last week a friend and I bought a house 5 minutes from downtown Columbus. Your reference to the lower 48 implies that you lived in the upper 1?
ClownLurch
Fish Gatherer
Last years Xmas present DNA test kit revealed I was 3% Norwegian! I’ll have to research the accent.Happy day...both Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are from the UK, so I am certain that the lilt is written in there. And @ClownLurch is correct, there are hundreds based on neighborhoods and the migratory patterns of breeding-age adults. Sometimes I ask people to read what I write with a Norwegian accent because it is far more exotic.
@Retired Viking we have a pond behind the office and I could totally scrape them off and toss them there. That exposes me to all sorts of amazing wildlife, because where I live, we are not top of the foodchain. I will say that the snails certainly move around quite a bit, zooming to and fro, as much as a snail can zoom, and the adult blues love the boiled carrots I toss in every few days.
@Flushable Pets I was born in Cincy, lived in Maryland for many of my formative years and now live in Florida, although last week a friend and I bought a house 5 minutes from downtown Columbus. Your reference to the lower 48 implies that you lived in the upper 1?
TBH I was hoping for a more exotic mixture. Though my mother who has researched our family tree wasn’t surprised as she can’t find anyone born more than 60 miles from my birthplace in the 200+yrs she’s done so far.
Happy day....so I wonder. If I smoosh a snail and send in the slime as if it was mine...I wonder how that would come back? I'm sure people have done this before, so they must have some way of coping with it. I often see ads on aquabid where the seller talks about a certain genetic line for betta and shrimp, but how would us commoners know if it is real?
@Flushable Pets Here's a pic of the tank and some of the inhabitants....25 blue dream shrimp, 3 blue mystery snails, 1 purple mystery snail, 2 amano shrimp and now a boatload of what I think are the pond/bladder snails but maybe are the blues? or purple?
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Retired Viking
Fish Connoisseur
I lived in Tampa when I was a kid, we had a small alligator show up in our back yard after a storm, My father and grandfather could still speak Norwegian, I speak a little but I was told that I have an Canadian accent.Happy day...both Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are from the UK, so I am certain that the lilt is written in there. And @ClownLurch is correct, there are hundreds based on neighborhoods and the migratory patterns of breeding-age adults. Sometimes I ask people to read what I write with a Norwegian accent because it is far more exotic.
@Retired Viking we have a pond behind the office and I could totally scrape them off and toss them there. That exposes me to all sorts of amazing wildlife, because where I live, we are not top of the foodchain. I will say that the snails certainly move around quite a bit, zooming to and fro, as much as a snail can zoom, and the adult blues love the boiled carrots I toss in every few days.
@Flushable Pets I was born in Cincy, lived in Maryland for many of my formative years and now live in Florida, although last week a friend and I bought a house 5 minutes from downtown Columbus. Your reference to the lower 48 implies that you lived in the upper 1?
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