Rogue Snail?

[hakova]

Hi all,

My tank now has a total of 3 snails from Family Physidae as far as I can tell. They (the first two) came with the riccia I purchase from ebay. I am OK with their presence although I am on look out for their eggs to collect and discard them when seen.

My question is about one of the larger ones. This guy started floating on the surface of water upside down today. It circles around the tank with the water movement, up and down as well, and occasionally it will hold on to a plant or heater, etc. to walk on it for a while. This is the only indication that makes me believe that it is still alive. After a brief period of walking, it will let go off whatever it was holding on to, then starts floating around again. The other two never float; they keep walking on plants, glass, etc. Has anybody seen such a behavior before? I am quite new to snails BTW, so please excuse my ignorance if this is commonly seen. OTH, if this is a sign of sickness, I would like to take it out from the tank.

Any pointers will be appreciated.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I had a rogue snail in my tank and he was floating around too; so I took him out the tank and put him in a pot of his own to see if he was ok.

Just looked up the snails and they are the same as I had; I asked in a pet shop and the man in there said they were a pest and to get rid of them because they reproduce asexually (i.e. you only need one). The man in the shop recommended I squashed them and fed them to my fish; or keeping them and breeding them and feeding them to my fish...

I found 5 in my tank; I've not seen anymore but I am keeping my eye out for them.

 

[saltynay]

Walking on the surface is normal even when they get up to a large size for pond and rams horns snails they are searching for food is all and will lay their eggs against the plants they float over to on occasion. They don't produce A-sexually they are hermaphroditic and require coming in contact with at least one same species snail to reproduce however once they have passed there sperm packet on and received one they can reproduce very rapidly for a long time without requiring further interaction. Pest snails are great they fill an ecological niche Malaysian trumpet snails turn the substrate preventing gas problems and black sand, Rams horns and Pond snails eat excess fish food and algae, Apple snails have beautiful snails and also eat algae and excess food and breed fairly easily although they need a male and female to be present, Nerites are algae machines and don't reproduce in freshwater, Assassins eat pest snails thus keeping population numbers down and turn the substrate they will eat and prefer catfish or sinking pellets to live food if made available.

Squashing them releases their eggs on occassion so you may destroy one but release 20 more in the process. Best to use a combination of cucumber in the tank for short periods (2 hours) with the light off then remove and you will find a group of snails happily feeding, removal by hand whenever seen, reduction or stop feeding your fish for a week, then after the week of no feeding and constant removal is finished use a copper based treatment to kill any survivors for however long the box suggests then run carbon in your filter for 2 weeks. You don't want to go straight into a copper treatment snail killer as it will cause an ammonia spike and thus harm your other aquatic life.