HELP SNAIL ISSUE

[SaFyQ448]

Hi, I have a 37 gallon planted aquarium that has so many plants. I recently have got an explosion of trumpet snails in the tank. I hardly even put food or nutrients into the water and do 2 week 50% changes on the tank due to there only being 4 Cory’s and 1 bristlenos. I guess I’m indifferent with the snails but they are all crawling up the tank to the top and I looked it up and I can’t find a good answer. My water parameters fit both the snails and fish perfectly and I did a 20% change last Monday because of the same issue. Please help.

 

[PygmyPepperJulli]

I've read a few things about snails (never tried them, I see my bladder snails as a cleanup crew but I see why others don't )

One of the main strategies is to put a piece of vegetables (usually lettuce) in the tank and leave it overnight. In the morning, they'll all be eating it, and you can just pick up the lettuce and take all the snails with it. Rinse and repeat until no more snails

You could try the other extreme- adding a snail eating fish eg. pea puffer/loaches, but that's probably not the best solution. Or chemicals.

Or you could just try manual removal... but if you have that many snails, I don't think that'll work.

If you don't want snails in the future, check all your plants and stuff before you put them in, and if you're really paranoid you can do a hydrogen peroxide/bleach dip (but only if you can live with the responsibility of possibly killing your plants along with the snails). They're also probably eating dead plant bits if you're not having excess food in the bottom, so if you make sure you vacuum all the dead plant stuff up they should stop reproducing (lack of food).

Good luck!

 

[Sir Guppy]

Another option would be assassin snails.

 

[plebian]

Hi, I have a 37 gallon planted aquarium that has so many plants. I recently have got an explosion of trumpet snails in the tank. I hardly even put food or nutrients into the water and do 2 week 50% changes on the tank due to there only being 4 Cory’s and 1 bristlenos. I guess I’m indifferent with the snails but they are all crawling up the tank to the top and I looked it up and I can’t find a good answer. My water parameters fit both the snails and fish perfectly and I did a 20% change last Monday because of the same issue. Please help.

Snails are for life. Once you have them you'll never get rid of them (without sterilizing your tank). The best you can do is control them by reducing the organic matter they feed on. This means not only reduced feedings, but removing any dead/dying plant matter and vacuuming the substrate regularly.

If you're willing to temporarily remove your fish, you can eradicate the snails with copper sulfate. A solution of 5ppm over a period of 24 hours will do the trick without harming your plants. Note: 5ppm copper will require approximately 20ppm copper sulfate.

Copper sulfate does combine with some minerals commonly found in water, so you will need to monitor the copper levels to make sure they stay at that level. There are test kits available that will do this. The copper sulfate will degrade your biofiltration, but the bacteria should recover relatively quickly once the fish are returned to the tank. Your bioload is low enough it should be safe for the fish until your biofiltration recovers, you just need to monitor ammonia and change water as necessary.

 

[jaylach]

I'm one of those weird people that happens to like bladder snails but can't have them as my fish eat them pike popcorn.

 

[kiko]

some people will tell you traps...assassin snails blablabla...nothing works...
pea puffers work wonders on ramshorn snails
chain loaches for trumpets
it'll take months but eventually you won't see a single one of those guys moving
I grow ramshorn in my shrimp tank for the pea puffers...
I had trumpet snails which tagged along in a pleco cave and somehow they lived being dry for days and cave washed with super hot water
funny thing is that I didn't see a single one when I put the cave in...it's a good reminder to BOIL things before putting them in your tank

 

[jaylach]

some people will tell you traps...assassin snails blablabla...nothing works...
pea puffers work wonders on ramshorn snails
chain loaches for trumpets
it'll take months but eventually you won't see a single one of those guys moving
I grow ramshorn in my shrimp tank for the pea puffers...
I had trumpet snails which tagged along in a pleco cave and somehow they lived being dry for days and cave washed with super hot water
funny thing is that I didn't see a single one when I put the cave in...it's a good reminder to BOIL things before putting them in your tank

While you are correct that there are fish that will gobble up snails. such as my cichlids. I've never been one to advocate getting fish for the purpose of solving a problem.

 

[GaryE]

Manual removal via traps, for months, can eliminate them without boiling or wrecking the tank. They are classic invasives, reproducing quickly. In my view, there are no positives to them in an aquarium.They live around a year and tend to die while buried in the gravel. Over a year, 100 of these pests can affect your water quality in a slow, dragged out way. I suppose if you have a Malaysian biotope tank, they would fit, but otherwise, they have no contribution to make and do a lot of harm.

If you want your gravel turned over, get a stick.

If you introduce a predator, they can be eliminated, but then you have a pet predator with no prey, and a responsibility to take care of it.

Part of what makes them such a disturbing pest is the effort it takes to get rid of them. Pond snails take weeks, but trumpets, alas, need months. A few months ago, I talked about how an extreme chilling of my gravel during a move had eliminated these pests, but recently, I saw one. Luckily for me, the water at the new house seems too soft for them to maintain their shells, and they don't seem to be thriving. But they are a scourge - the shelled cockroaches of the aquarium world..