Is it worth emptying a tank to get rid of snails?

[BrianK]

I've been squishing, zucchini squash did not work, although the clown pleco and albino bristle nose enjoyed it. I'll try the cucumber.

where are they hiding their eggs?

On the underside of leaves mostly for me. Look for clear jelly-like blobs.

 

[Alice B]

I can spot in ponds, but I am not sure in the tank where they are laying, may borrow my daughter's yoyo loach

 

[14efish]

I have three kuhli loaches in that tank and I don’t know that the eat snails, I have them because I like loaches. I would have a larger group if the tank was larger.
I change out the hiding places, when one is covered with snails I take it out and put in the one that isn’t. (Put the covered one outside till they all fall off, a week or so)
I took out all the plants, it looks bare but the snails were ruining them anyway.
Loaches and cats really do like zucchini to eat, lol feed it to mine all the time.
I appreciate all the help.

 

[cvikcangle]

I like snails, but usually keep only MTS, I have soft spot for those tiny buggers.

However, back in days in one of my tanks I got some planaria. And I got Genchem (?) "No planaria". Before treatment I tried to remove as much snails as I can to save them (I had MTS and Ramshorn, maybe some other as well), but that was impossible.

After treatment - no survivors. Shrimp, plants and some tiny fish that was in that tank wasn't stressed at all, but all snails, planaria and probably some detritus worms - all dead. I waited several months before reintroducing MTS, and in the meantime there was not a single snail.

So, you might want to try something like that. Of course, you can expect some ammonia and other spikes in the process, so if possible put all the livestock and filter media in quarantine tank, or at least big box

 

[sharkweek178]

I've grown to like the appearance of ramshorn snails. I've actually moved some to my other tank because my assassin snails seemed to be better at killing them than they are at killing pond snails.

 

[seannx]

Saving the fish of course and the water. I have a 25 gallon tank that I am tired of pulling snails out of. I would replace all filter material and gravel.

My 32.5 gallon tank had a huge infestation of small bladderwort snails. Taking them out, using lettuce, snail traps, or reducing food didn’t work. As many have recommended, get some assassin snails. It took six about a month to completely eliminate them. They didn’t bother my nerite or mystery snails, are good at cleaning algae off of glass, and very slow to reproduce. Have your local shop order some.

 

[Lillypad101]

I got a trapdoor snail for algae control when I was a beginner (2 years ago), and didn’t know that they were livebearers… they took over the tank, and are pretty large. Still have them to this day. I spread them out throughout my tanks, and give some back to the pet store. Your pet store may not take your snails, but you can see if the store sells assassin snails, or try other recommended paths from others who have posted here.

 

[sharkweek178]

My 32.5 gallon tank had a huge infestation of small bladderwort snails. Taking them out, using lettuce, snail traps, or reducing food didn’t work. As many have recommended, get some assassin snails. It took six about a month to completely eliminate them. They didn’t bother my nerite or mystery snails, are good at cleaning algae off of glass, and very slow to reproduce. Have your local shop order some.

Here's a caveat about assassin snails. One of the big reasons that pest snails proliferate in a tank is overfeeding. Assassin snails will actually prefer to eat leftover fish food to other snails. So if you get assassins and still overfeed, it's a double whammy. The pest snails will continue to multiply and then also the assassins won't do much about it.

 

[cvikcangle]

Assassin snails are beautiful and I would keep them to do, well, snail job When I want to remove something from tank I prefer to do it manually. There is no snails that can start reproducing after a few days after hatching. So, I would keep removing the biggest, and in time there will be no more snails. That would take time, but everything does in this hobby. Instant solutions often causing yoyo effect and other issues.

 

[Ram419]

I have used a couple assasin snails before with success but I did so before the pest snails became a real problem. Those assasin snails are still alive btw but they get food from leftovers that I feed the fish.
If you have a large amount of pest snails I'd imagine you needs a bigger amount of assasin snails to really deal with the issue. Or like others have said, use multiple approaches for larger amounts of them.

 

[fishhead66]

I've done that before and it still didn't get rid of snails and I made hell of a mess while I was at it.

 

[seannx]

Here's a caveat about assassin snails. One of the big reasons that pest snails proliferate in a tank is overfeeding. Assassin snails will actually prefer to eat leftover fish food to other snails. So if you get assassins and still overfeed, it's a double whammy. The pest snails will continue to multiply and then also the assassins won't do much about it.

Assassin snails are beautiful and I would keep them to do, well, snail job When I want to remove something from tank I prefer to do it manually. There is no snails that can start reproducing after a few days after hatching. So, I would keep removing the biggest, and in time there will be no more snails. That would take time, but everything does in this hobby. Instant solutions often causing yoyo effect and other issues.

That’s what I thought at first, but my tank was heavily planted, and no matter how many baby snails I took out (some days it was 30+) it didn’t make a difference. The mature snails of that kind were only about 1/4” long, and the babies were very tiny. It was a 32.5 gallon Fluval tank, and some got in the parts with the filter media, pump, and heater. The first assassin snail went there, and after a couple of weeks it appeared on top of one of the foam inserts. I put it in the main tank with a couple more, and then added others for a total of six. Within a month all the invasive snails were gone. A few months later I broke the tank down, and there were three or so mature ones and about ten small baby assassin snails left. I gave them to the local store along with a couple of nerite snails, and 3 Pygmy cory cats I hadn’t seen for months. The remaining 40-50 cherry shrimp I moved to an outdoor tank for the summer that has a Fluval canister filter. It’s so much easier to care for, has big plants, and 6 small colorful fish.