Snail Cure?

[Whitey_144]

I have some snails in my 30G planted tank, i'm not overrun, but even after crushing some, next week there will be a few more.

What's the best way to solve this? is by getting assasin snails? or these then just end up overbreeding too?

thanks,
whitey

 

[Morior]

Assassin snails tend to only eat about 2 or 3 pest snails per day from what I've seen. I had to go abroad for a while after leaving 3 assassin snails in my tank. When I came back, my tank was totally overrun by pest snails. I would say just scoop them out or crush them before your tank ends up like mine.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Buy a few assassin snails, they wont breed like pest snails and they did the job well for me, also clown loaches eat them I believe.

 

[micko]

I think you need to work out the cause of why the pest snails are there in the first place. Without doing that they will appear again.
Most likely cause is over feeding. The breed a lot when there's extra food and in fact, they're a great friend to you if that is the case, they're eating food that would otherwise rot and send your water stats sky high. Remove the snails and this could happen.

Try reducing the ammount of food you give your fish firstly.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

Buy a few assassin snails, they wont breed like pest snails and they did the job well for me, also clown loaches eat them I believe.

Please Please do NOT advise loaches as cure for snails they are not. Yes they eat snails but this will open up a multitude of other problems like tank size and stocking levels for loaches.

Snails are good for your tank, if you see a boom it is a sign of overfeeding/poor water conditions. Assassin snails eat 2-3 snails per week so are not a solution but i have 5 in 75g and i only notice 3-5 pest snails a week so perfect. I feed once per day 5 days a week.
To help combat the 1st boom you can try lettuce or cucumber just before lights out, in the morning remove and discard

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Chill out, this was something I was told by someone on here!!!

 

[FishyWishie]

To be fair he only said they eat them he did not at any point tell the person to go out and buy clown loaches

 

[Ps3Steveo]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I like this guy^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ pmsl

 

[BigbruiserAl]

Chill out, this was something I was told by someone on here!!!

If your not 100% why advise is given or dont understand it fully dont give it out, because i read it on the internet is prime cause. Yes your trying to help but it would lead to more problems for him and you didt intend that. There are a few posts in the last months asking members not to advise on adding fish for snail cures for this very reason as the snail one pop up every week.
PS Dont take it personally people have the fish's care at heart not your ego

 

[bae1994]

I have assassin snails in my 100gallon and they have eradicated my pest snails and they are now breeding ( hopefully not to much or I'll have pest assasins but I could sell them)

Bae

 

[Davehutton92]

I think you need to work out the cause of why the pest snails are there in the first place. Without doing that they will appear again.
Most likely cause is over feeding. The breed a lot when there's extra food and in fact, they're a great friend to you if that is the case, they're eating food that would otherwise rot and send your water stats sky high. Remove the snails and this could happen.

Try reducing the ammount of food you give your fish firstly.

+1 for this there must be a reason for them breeding excessively try and find the problem and solve it that way

 

[bumbleweasle]

+1 for this there must be a reason for them breeding excessively try and find the problem and solve it that way

I ain't no expert, but I agree with this.. I was overrun with trumpet snails a while back.. tragedy in the family = this bumbleweasle lost the plot a bit with the tank maintenance during her grief. The substrate was absolutely covered in dead plant material, and soon became covered (literally) with armies of the snails! This was what kinda kicked me up the butt to get things sorted, tbh.. I looked in there one day & it looked like the substrate was actually alive.

Anyhoo, once I got back on track they magically sorted themselves out! Barely had to remove any, & now I have a healthy (small) population of helpful trumpet snails, rather than them threatening tank domination.

 

[Whitey_144]

thanks everyone for your replies.

I don't think i've been overfeeding, there isn't a boom of snails, i can only see about 5 at this moment (although i guess otheres are hiding) so it's not so bad, i just thought it may be better to prevent a boom rather than let it happen, but as you say this is likely to be normal, so i'll keep maintenance as it is, but i may still get some assasin snails, just as an addition ( i think they look nice anyway!). so far i've bought all my fish online from one supplier, for assasin snails i guess i'd have to look at ebay, is there any risk of intriducing any diseases? as it's from a different supplier.

thansk for the advise about loaces too, when i was younger i was told by my LFS to get clown loaches, only afterwards i found out how big they grew, so yep i know i can't get these for this tank...but i do love them! my first ever fish i had!

cheers!
adam