Hitch-hiking Snails

[hensonc4098]

Hiya,

I'm in the process of setting up a new tank which is currently cycling. I got some plants a couple of weeks ago to put in and, lo and behold, I've had a hitch-hiker. So about a week ago, I noticed one tiny, and I mean, TINY snail on the inside of the glass - about a couple of mm in diameter and a reddish colour. I picked it out.
Then, a few days ago, another tiny one on the inside of the glass. So I picked that one out too.
Then last night, a bigger one on one of my plants got picked out along with another 3 that I found after closely inspecting the tank (AKA, pressing my nose up against the glass). I hadn't seen any eggs and I presume that they all didn't come in on the 3 plants that I bought???
I tried to take a picture of 3 of the ones that I took out last night - sorry about the quality - they were so small that the camera struggled to focus on them.

Does anyone know what they are? I just don't want all my plants getting munched by a bunch of snails If they are "pest" snails, how can I get rid of them apart from my seemingly useless harvesting of them?
Thanks guys & gals

Claire

 

[saltynay]

Look like ramshorns either that or the more common hitch-hiker pond snails depends on the shape of the shell which from the pic looks more like the ramshorn. They are both "pest" snails however I quite like mine and aslong as you don't overfeed the tank the population numbers should remain relatively low. If they do start to rise higher then you wish the eggs are quite easy to spot they are little dots in jelly on the glass just remove a few of those and add some assassin snails which will eat small numbers of them making them good for maintaining population sizes.

 

[hensonc4098]

Will they eat my plants as I have heard that ramshorns can be quite destructive.
Is there any other way of getting rid of them as adding snails to get rid of snails isn't really what I want to do

Thanks a lot

Claire

 

[saltynay]

Depends on the plants really I know that Pond snails and ramshorns like to nibble on my anacharis but they don't damage it prolifically and there are some plants they don't eat, you will need to do your own research into compatiblity of snails and plants. Generally speaking ramshorns aren't prolific vegetation eaters whilst apple and mystery snails are but there are lots of sub species within these groups which have completely different eating characterstics.

Too get rid of them completely there are a few measures;
Loaches, goldfish and some plecs will hunt down snails.
Copper kills all inverts but this can lead to them decaying in hidden areas of the tank giving you ammonia spikes and if you have any shrimp they will die
Some macro shrimp eat inverts

Controlling snail population measures are:
Assassin snails breed very slowly and they have genders and won't breed without a male and female however its very hard to tell which gender is which
Put a leaf in the tank for 2 hours with the lights off then remove, keep doing this whenever you think the snail popn gets too high. Some people combine this with then using a copper solution to minimise thae amount of decaying snails in the tank
Feeding less to your fish and there will not be as much nutrients left over in the tank for the snails to feed on

Once you have pest snails it can be quite difficult to get rid them personally don't see mine as pests they keep my tank clear of algae and make the environment appear more natural.

 

[three-fingers]

These guys really aren't destructive at all, and couldent eat healthy plants if they wanted to.

I'd just leave them, they do no harm whatsoever and will only multiply loads if you feed too much or let lots of organic matter build up in the tank.

I find this type of small planorbid snail in my external filters every now and then, I put some in my shrimp tank but they were died out and the tadpole snails, larger ramshorns and MTS all thrived, so I would assume these guys aren't as prolific as those species.