Is it worth emptying a tank to get rid of snails?
- Thread starter 14efish
- Start date
You can but it is a bit of a work by emptying the tank to get the job done. But yes, you can clean it all. But of course, there are other ways to get rid of your snails. Use a leaf of lettuce or a piece of cucumber. That may attract those snails. Once they're on it, you can take the leaf or piece of cucumber out of the tank. Botia species and puffer fish love snails. But you could also use assassin snails to get rid of your snails. The assassin snails need both male and female to reproduce themselves unlike your snails which just clone themselves. And assassin snails have less offspring than those snails of yours. So, it won't become a plague so fast.
I could see hating snails enough to do this. They have an uncanny way of surviving though. You could do all that and have them slip through and reappear.
Or you could easily miss some eggs.
It is not worth emptying the tank to get rid of snails, nor is it at all sensible, quite the opposite. Primarily, this will destroy either copletely or in a major way, the biological system. Minor "problems" like snails or algae are not even remotely significant enough to do this damage. And as others have said, you likely won't get them all anyway.
Snails are an important part of the ecosystem in any aquarium. They do good things the aquarist cannot do, biologically, no matter how you "clean" the tank. If you have too many, it is because you are providing them with sufficient food. This can be too much fish food, algae, not maintaining the system properly, whatever. It would seem from your post (#1) that you may not be doing what needs doing. Look at proper maintenance before tossing out your helpmates.
Snails are an important part of the ecosystem in any aquarium. They do good things the aquarist cannot do, biologically, no matter how you "clean" the tank. If you have too many, it is because you are providing them with sufficient food. This can be too much fish food, algae, not maintaining the system properly, whatever. It would seem from your post (#1) that you may not be doing what needs doing. Look at proper maintenance before tossing out your helpmates.
it probably won't work unless you simply get a new tank and restart. and you probably will get snails from a bag of new fish or plants.
even if you don't completely sanitize your arms or something, the eggs will drop into the new tank and infest it
the best option is to wait it out and feed less.
once you find a balance in how much you should feed in your tank, snails will be rare. In my 75g, snails overran it the first few months, but after 3 years, the snails are just part of the tank, and only appear once in a while.
Now that @Byron has mentioned it, this would almost completely destroy any beneficial bacterial in your tank. They don't live in the water. They live on the surfaces in your tank, primarily in the filter media but also substantially in the substrate. Doing this could actually kill your fish by exposing them to higher levels of ammonia and nitrites.
What sort of snails are they?
You can kill some snails with salt, all species die from copper, and flushing a tank can get rid of them too. However, pond & ramshorn snails leave eggs on plants and ornaments and you would have to get rid of them. Malaysian livebearing snails have babies that end up everywhere and you have to do a really good job flushing tanks to get rid of them. I prefer copper for 24-48 hours and then flushing to get rid of Malaysian livebearing snails.
Assassin snails are a good option if you can get them. Just add a few assassins and when they run out of food, give them to a friend or pet shop.
You can kill some snails with salt, all species die from copper, and flushing a tank can get rid of them too. However, pond & ramshorn snails leave eggs on plants and ornaments and you would have to get rid of them. Malaysian livebearing snails have babies that end up everywhere and you have to do a really good job flushing tanks to get rid of them. I prefer copper for 24-48 hours and then flushing to get rid of Malaysian livebearing snails.
Assassin snails are a good option if you can get them. Just add a few assassins and when they run out of food, give them to a friend or pet shop.
I've got lots of those assassin snails. They're also good cleaners. Because I have them in most tanks I've got, they reproduce well. I always bring them along to relevant vivaristic events. They sell quite well overthere. For I never bring them home again after the event day is over.
Thank you for all the help, I have taken out all the plants. I don’t know what kind of snails they are - just the little brown ones. I have decided that emptying the tank probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Some are so small they would just slip by. I am not sure about the assassin snails I will ask at my fish store and cut back on food. The loaches were suppose to help but if they are it isn’t noticeable although i like them.
There are very, very few fish that will actually make a significant impact on snails. You mention loaches...which species? A 25g is small space, and loaches are highly social and must bein a group. This could be another issue. It is never advisable to get any fish to deal with what the aquarist perceives as a "problem," especially as it is not a problem anyway.
I did daily search and destroy missions for about 6 months but finally got rid of mine. I also cleaned off what eggs I could find. It was only hard for the first few weeks when there was a lot.
Alice B
Fish Herder
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?
I used to have hundreds of Malayan snails. I tried everything, removing dozens each day but made no difference. Eventually I added a few small botia, not specifically to get rid of the snails, but soon they were no longer a major problem so I stopped trying to resolve it. Probably a year later I realised that I no longer had any snails - that must've been 15 years ago and I've never seen a snail since, so it does work even if it takes a while for you to notice.
Alice B
Fish Herder
botia will do it, but I have so much trouble getting healthy fish I'm afraid to buy any anymore
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