Snail eggs and snail killer and impact on filter bacteria

[AlexT]

Not brand new to the hobby. Been absent for about 10 years. It is my understanding that most snail killer remedies contain copper. The impact of snail killer on the fish and plants I want to keep is not relevant here. No fish, and these plants I don't mind throwing away. Just the impact on the filter media. Made the mistake of adding a few cheap Elodea Densa to a newly cycling tank, just so there was a bit of green in there. I could either just bin the plants, or move the plants out and treat the plants separately. I'm still left with the possibility of snail eggs though in the tank. I've already spotted a good few snail eggs.

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[moonmist]

I’m not super knowledgeable in snails but may I suggest buying tissue culture plants if you plan on starting over? They are grown in vitro and you have no possibility of any hitchhikers. They’re great!

 

[Byron]

First, do not treat plants for snails or their eggs. Rhonda Wilson with her monthly column in TFH said that anything strong enough to actually kill them would inevitably harm the plants. I know you may toss yours out, but keep this in mind.

Second, snails are your helpmates. They assist the tank's biology in ways nothing else including the aquarist can. They will reproduce to the level of available food, so that in itself is a good indicator. If you really need to get rid of them there are safe ways without risking the biological system. I don't know what effect on the nitrifying bacteria this product might have.

 

[AlexT]

First, do not treat plants for snails or their eggs. Rhonda Wilson with her monthly column in TFH said that anything strong enough to actually kill them would inevitably harm the plants. I know you may toss yours out, but keep this in mind.

Second, snails are your helpmates. They assist the tank's biology in ways nothing else including the aquarist can. They will reproduce to the level of available food, so that in itself is a good indicator. If you really need to get rid of them there are safe ways without risking the biological system. I don't know what effect on the nitrifying bacteria this product might have.

Brilliant, thanks Byron. I've not taken any action yet, other than remove the eggs that were only on a couple of stems of plants. Having taken all this time and research to do the fishless cycling with Dr Tim's, I do not want to f@@@ about with the bacteria that are growing by adding another chemical (snail killer), and actually, these plants I viewed as "throw away's" are doing quite well. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Colin_T]

I would just add copper for a few days to a week then flush the tank out a few times. Then add some carbon to the filter for a week and away you go.

There's no point throwing the plants away because the copper can kill any snails on them. And if you get new plants, there is no guarantee they won't have snails or snail eggs on them, unless you get tissue cultured plants.

If you want more plants, then add them before treating the tank for snails.

The beneficial filter bacteria are not normally affected by copper even though copper is meant to kill bacteria. I have used copper in my tanks plenty of times and never had a filter die off from it.

 

[AlexT]

I would just add copper for a few days to a week then flush the tank out a few times. Then add some carbon to the filter for a week and away you go.

There's no point throwing the plants away because the copper can kill any snails on them. And if you get new plants, there is no guarantee they won't have snails or snail eggs on them, unless you get tissue cultured plants.

If you want more plants, then add them before treating the tank for snails.

The beneficial filter bacteria are not normally affected by copper even though copper is meant to kill bacteria. I have used copper in my tanks plenty of times and never had a filter die off from it.

Thanks for that Colin.

 

[Essjay]

If you do use copper it must be totally, 100% removed if you ever want to keep shrimps or ornamental snails. Just something to bear in mind.

 

[StevenF]

The snail filler may be just copper sulfate or it might be a chemical attached to copper. If it is chemical attached to copper you need to flush out the tank (many Water changes or a couple of large water changes). Copper by itself is required by all plants and animal, Snails, and Shrimp to live if your food didn't have copper in it you would die. I make my own fertilizer and use it in a small tank with blu dream shrimp filled with RO water. From my own experience 20 PPB (parts per billion, or 0.02 parts per million) of Copper Sulfate willl not kill blu dream shrimp. In fact the population increased. Currently I am using a different fertilizer and does 3ppb of Copper EDTA. Again Copper EDTA had no effect on my shrimp. 3ppb is about the minimum needed for health plant growth.

The lethality of copper is way overblown. Many say it must be zero and even 1 PPB is too much. There is no data available to support this claim. Also most homes have copper water pipes. As a result your tap water has copper in it. The EPA limits copper to about 1PPM (100PPB) Most homes will have about 110PPB of copper or a little more in the tap water Cooper test kits you can buy cannot detect copper at concentrations of 70PPB or less. I had 50PPB in my tap waterwheel I had it measured and in fact could test it. I installed a RO system for dreinking water and use that in the tank. (RO water will be close to 1PPB or less of copper. The water utility eventually reduced the copper level in my tap water. How much copper can shrimp andle? I don't know. And haven't found any good data online listing the limit. Based on my own experiments it is likely much high than 20PPB Cu sulfate or Cu EDTA. Plants can handle much much more copper without any adverse effect.