How do I get ahead of a ramshorn snail problem??

[jonatheber]

I have a livebearer planted tank. I bought some plants and didn't bleach them (stupid), and snails hitched a ride. The day after I put the plants in the tank, I saw a ramshorn and discarded it. A few days later I saw a little black thing crawling on one of the plants. I got rid of that, and for three weeks, saw no sign of any plants. Today, though, I saw a snail about half of the size of a pencil eraser crawling on the filter intake. Panic time - I do NOT want any snails in my tank.... I tried to grab it, and the thing slipped out of my fingers and it blended into the gravel I have at the bottom.

So my question boils down to this.... If there is one smaller snail, there are likely more that I just haven't seen them yet. I want to stop this in its tracks. I have seen a few different suggestions on the forum:

1) Blanch carrots or lettuce and put them in the tank as bait - Happy to try this. I do want suggestions on how to avoid having my guppies, mollies, etc eat the carrots to save it as bait for the snails. I'm thinking that I could use a pint size chinese food takeout container and cut holes in the top big enough for snails but too small for fish to get in. Will this work? Will snails that size be able to locate the veggies at all?

2) Buy assassin snails - I could buy them online somewhere, but don't want to trade a pest snail problem with an assassin snail explosion. How many snails do I need to get ahead of this? I have a 46 gallon tank. If I buy e.g. 3 of them, won't I end up with a massive number of assassins crawling around???

3) Medicine - I have some babies in the tank, and am worried about having a bunch of medicine in the tank but I suppose this could be done too.

4) Is there a different option I'm missing?

HELP!

 

[FishBearer9845]

Assassin snail x 1 or 2 should help, they should eat anything their size and smaller in terms of snails. Someone will be able to confirm if assassins only hatch in brackish water

 

[HoldenOn]

Assassin snail x 1 or 2 should help, they should eat anything their size and smaller in terms of snails. Someone will be able to confirm if assassins only hatch in brackish water

They hatch in fresh water.

 

[jonatheber]

They hatch in fresh water.

So if I buy 2 assassin snails will I end up with a bunch of those in 6 months instead of a bunch of ramshorn nails? I do NOT overfeed, by the way - I know to only feed a little bit. I also weekly python vacuum out the bottom of the tank when I do water changes.

Also, is 2 the right number? I found a decent price for a group of 4 of them. Is that too many?

 

[HoldenOn]

So if I buy 2 assassin snails will I end up with a bunch of those in 6 months instead of a bunch of ramshorn nails? I do NOT overfeed, by the way - I know to only feed a little bit. I also weekly python vacuum out the bottom of the tank when I do water changes.

Also, is 2 the right number? I found a decent price for a group of 4 of them. Is that too many?

They breed easily. One assassin would be able to get the job done eventually. 4 is good amount, they will control the population of ramshorn, but will breed.

 

[jonatheber]

They breed easily. One assassin would be able to get the job done eventually. 4 is good amount, they will control the population of ramshorn, but will breed.

Ok. I'll start with one and buy more if there is a problem.

 

[jonatheber]

I suppose I should also add an option to buy a loach, as long as it won't kill the livebearers and their fry.

 

[Lynnzer]

I bought a couple of pea puffers with the promise that I could sell them back to the shop when they had finished the job.
They are rampant snail eaters. However if you hang onto them once there are no more snails they start nipping the fins of the fish too. Let them do the job and keep them just long enough to see if any snail eggs are hatching, and get rid of them if your tank is clear. Of course you could buy a small separate tank for them just in case you need to use them again later. They don't need big tanks and were quite happy in a round glass tube, a leftover from my wife's perfumed candle buying. The tube is about 5" diameter and holds around 2 litres. They are characters to watch as they curl around the tank/tube but not in any numbers as they don't tolerate each other either much. Two at most should be fine.

 

[vanalisa]

I suppose I should also add an option to buy a loach, as long as it won't kill the livebearers and their fry.

One Assassin and lots of manual labor. Have you seen eggs yet? Scrape them off the side of the tank or remove them from plants. This helps a lot .

@primsloaches16 do loaches need a group?

 

[jonatheber]

One Assassin and lots of manual labor. Have you seen eggs yet? Scrape them off the side of the tank or remove them from plants. This helps a lot .

@primsloaches16 do loaches need a group?

I have seen no sign of any eggs. That's why I'm hopeful I can get the juvenile snails before they start getting out of control.

 

[Lynnzer]

Loaches can grow to a large size so if you can't accommodate a fish that big then best not buy it.
I tried them myself. Lost the first 2 soon after buying them and the third just wouldn't stop growing. It wasn't very useful for snail control either. Some are : some aren't so it's a bit of a chance.

 

[Byron]

This thread is going in the wrong direction. Let's back up.

First, snails are not a negative (fry tanks or tanks with spawning fish is another matter, we are here talking generally). They are without question a benefit in any healthy aquarium. They eat organics, and this means fish excrement, which breaks it down faster for the various bacteria to handle. Snails get everywhere within the aquarium to keep all areas cleaner than otherwise. And, they can only survive if they have food, which obviously means with fish present there will always be food. That can indicate just how much organic matter is actually present. So, snails as such as beneficial not harmful--again we are talking the small common types that do not eat healthy plants.

Second, there is one way and only one way to remove or reduce snails: reduce their food, and physically remove them. In the earlier posts in this thread, additives and fish like loaches were mentioned. Never use either.

Fish that eat snails, like puffer fish and some (but not all) loach species, will control the snail population, but here you should actually be adding snails for the benefit of these fish, especially the puffer fish. Each species of fish has requirements for its maintenance, which can include needing a group for a shoaling species (and all loaches are shoaling fish); some of the loaches get huge, requiring 8-foot tanks; some of these species have behaviour problems. Keeping such fish in conditions that do not provide for their inherent requirements is inhumane.

As for additives--nothing (meaning chemical or medical additives) that kills any living creature should ever be added to an aquarium to solve a problem, with the sole exception of necessary medications for a specific disease issue. Substances that kill snails or algae will without question harm fish. Always.

Assassin snails are another risk. In some states of the US they are I believe illegal. They have managed to get into the natural ecosystems in some areas and decimate the natural snail population. Aquarists should be more responsible when it comes to the environment.

 

[HoldenOn]

This thread is going in the wrong direction. Let's back up.

First, snails are not a negative (fry tanks or tanks with spawning fish is another matter, we are here talking generally). They are without question a benefit in any healthy aquarium. They eat organics, and this means fish excrement, which breaks it down faster for the various bacteria to handle. Snails get everywhere within the aquarium to keep all areas cleaner than otherwise. And, they can only survive if they have food, which obviously means with fish present there will always be food. That can indicate just how much organic matter is actually present. So, snails as such as beneficial not harmful--again we are talking the small common types that do not eat healthy plants.

Second, there is one way and only one way to remove or reduce snails: reduce their food, and physically remove them. In the earlier posts in this thread, additives and fish like loaches were mentioned. Never use either.

Fish that eat snails, like puffer fish and some (but not all) loach species, will control the snail population, but here you should actually be adding snails for the benefit of these fish, especially the puffer fish. Each species of fish has requirements for its maintenance, which can include needing a group for a shoaling species (and all loaches are shoaling fish); some of the loaches get huge, requiring 8-foot tanks; some of these species have behaviour problems. Keeping such fish in conditions that do not provide for their inherent requirements is inhumane.

As for additives--nothing (meaning chemical or medical additives) that kills any living creature should ever be added to an aquarium to solve a problem, with the sole exception of necessary medications for a specific disease issue. Substances that kill snails or algae will without question harm fish. Always.

Assassin snails are another risk. In some states of the US they are I believe illegal. They have managed to get into the natural ecosystems in some areas and decimate the natural snail population. Aquarists should be more responsible when it comes to the environment.

Thanks Byron. I was going to inform OP that snails were valuable assets, but I ended up getting distracted with other things/threads. Thanks for bringing us full circle.

 

[vanalisa]

I have a livebearer planted tank. I bought some plants and didn't bleach them (stupid), and snails hitched a ride. The day after I put the plants in the tank, I saw a ramshorn and discarded it. A few days later I saw a little black thing crawling on one of the plants. I got rid of that, and for three weeks, saw no sign of any plants. Today, though, I saw a snail about half of the size of a pencil eraser crawling on the filter intake. Panic time - I do NOT want any snails in my tank.... I tried to grab it, and the thing slipped out of my fingers and it blended into the gravel I have at the bottom.

So my question boils down to this.... If there is one smaller snail, there are likely more that I just haven't seen them yet. I want to stop this in its tracks. I have seen a few different suggestions on the forum:

1) Blanch carrots or lettuce and put them in the tank as bait - Happy to try this. I do want suggestions on how to avoid having my guppies, mollies, etc eat the carrots to save it as bait for the snails. I'm thinking that I could use a pint size chinese food takeout container and cut holes in the top big enough for snails but too small for fish to get in. Will this work? Will snails that size be able to locate the veggies at all?

2) Buy assassin snails - I could buy them online somewhere, but don't want to trade a pest snail problem with an assassin snail explosion. How many snails do I need to get ahead of this? I have a 46 gallon tank. If I buy e.g. 3 of them, won't I end up with a massive number of assassins crawling around???

3) Medicine - I have some babies in the tank, and am worried about having a bunch of medicine in the tank but I suppose this could be done too.

4) Is there a different option I'm missing?

HELP!

I also got a Dwarf Pea Puffer as I had a problem with rams, pond and bladder snails. Manual removal into a 2.5g smal bubbler bucket to hold the snails in to feed to the Puffer and one Assassin in each tank. These 3 methods worked so well now I have to trade plants to LFS for snails! I had a BIG problem in a,few tanks, though. Also, a FEW in the tank help clean it and they are neat. I had one ram that reached the size of a quarter. But I kept these in tanks without Assassins
One Assassin and manual removal should be fine.

 

[vanalisa]

This thread is going in the wrong direction. Let's back up.

First, snails are not a negative (fry tanks or tanks with spawning fish is another matter, we are here talking generally). They are without question a benefit in any healthy aquarium. They eat organics, and this means fish excrement, which breaks it down faster for the various bacteria to handle. Snails get everywhere within the aquarium to keep all areas cleaner than otherwise. And, they can only survive if they have food, which obviously means with fish present there will always be food. That can indicate just how much organic matter is actually present. So, snails as such as beneficial not harmful--again we are talking the small common types that do not eat healthy plants.

Second, there is one way and only one way to remove or reduce snails: reduce their food, and physically remove them. In the earlier posts in this thread, additives and fish like loaches were mentioned. Never use either.

Fish that eat snails, like puffer fish and some (but not all) loach species, will control the snail population, but here you should actually be adding snails for the benefit of these fish, especially the puffer fish. Each species of fish has requirements for its maintenance, which can include needing a group for a shoaling species (and all loaches are shoaling fish); some of the loaches get huge, requiring 8-foot tanks; some of these species have behaviour problems. Keeping such fish in conditions that do not provide for their inherent requirements is inhumane.

As for additives--nothing (meaning chemical or medical additives) that kills any living creature should ever be added to an aquarium to solve a problem, with the sole exception of necessary medications for a specific disease issue. Substances that kill snails or algae will without question harm fish. Always.

Assassin snails are another risk. In some states of the US they are I believe illegal. They have managed to get into the natural ecosystems in some areas and decimate the natural snail population. Aquarists should be more responsible when it comes to the environment.

I did not know about the Assassin snail issue. I was scrupulous about one per tank, and removed the plant stems where they lay eggs, but some how found a couple extra. They lived their lives out in a vase!