Snail epidemic

[Janice]

I have always had snails in my tanks and I have always been in control of them - up until now! My 4 foot tank is over-run with snails, my fingers are aching with crushing them for the fish to eat. Can anyone recommend any fish that I can put in the tank to eat the most of the snails for me< I bought 'snail away' but I just can't bring myself to put it in the tank incase it affects the fish.
In my tank I have:
mollies
zebras
guppies
cory
khuli loaches
penguins
plec

Thank you in anticipation.

 

[bulldog188]

clown loaches are good snail eaters.. the best are puffers but I'm afraid they're unsuitable for your tank...

 

[tstenback]

Agreed. Clown loaches love snails and you dont have to crush anything they just suck the little devils right out of the shell.

 

[Janice]

Great, thank for the prompt reply, this actually means that I can just pop out to my lfs - now!!!

Thanks again

ps - how I would love to have a wee yellow puffer, maybe in the future when I get tnk no 5.

 

[endparenthesis]

You could just scoop out a few handfuls of them and toss them out the window or something. Maybe if you got the numbers down things would balance themselves out again.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Janice

Assuming that you don't want to take your entire tank apart and restart it, or add clown loaches (which will get huge), you have two options and you are not going to like either one.

Basically, you can either pick them out alive or pick them out dead.

If you use the product you bought to kill them, you will suddenly find yourself with a tank full of dead snails that are rapidly rotting and polluting the water. This could be a much worse alternative than picking them out while they are alive.

Since snails seem to reproduce when there is an excess of food in the tank, you might start by giving it a very, very good vacuuming and then cutting back on feeding your fish for a while. Remove any rotting plant matter as well. Then you might be able to get ahead by hand picking them out.

Also keep an eye out for eggs on the sides of the tank or on the plants and decorations and get rid of them immediately.

I went through this myself and ended up taking a 55 gallon tank apart to get rid of them. It was no fun!

 

[Janice]

I like the idea of buying a clown loach best, I like the look of them but I wasn't sure if they would do well with the rest of my fish. It doesn't matter that they grow quite big, I have a plec in the tank and it is about 8/9 inches, alias 'the submarine'

 

[tstenback]

another idea that has worked for me is putting a leaf of lettuce on the bottom of the tank at night and then in the morning you can pull it and all the freeloaders out with it.

 

[trevray2]

How big is your tank?

Many people fail to appreciate the damage lown loaches can cause to your set up when they are full grown...they move around alot and can displace gravel and let ur plants float away.

But other tahn that, theyre great ,

Good luck with ur epdiemic

-Trevray2

 

[thecichlidaddict]

another idea that has worked for me is putting a leaf of lettuce on the bottom of the tank at night and then in the morning you can pull it and all the freeloaders out with it

This is a great way to control the snail population, and is exactly what I was going to recommend.

 

[Sky042]

How big do the loaches have to be before they'll suck down a snail?

 

[Opcn]

You need three clown loaches as a minimum because they are schooling. And thats a good 30" in your tank. Why not get another tank right away and get that puffer. you dont need to crush the snails for a puffer just toss em in. Also ADF's will eat snails so you could get like 5 of em and have a grand old time.

 

[fishdudein]

Have to agree with opcn, clown loaches need other clown loaches. I personally like having snails in my tanks, crushing a few on a regular basis usually works to keep the population under control. Plus the fish love the free snack!!!

 

[Janice]

Thanks for all the info. I was ready just to go out and buy a clown loach but when I read through this forum and surfed the net for info, I noticed just how big they grow and that you need to buy more than one. So, for the sake of the fish I won't bother as I wouldn't want it to be lonely.

I will just crush away, actually I think I have nut crackers, , I will give them a go!!!

I tried the lettuce trick but the snails seemed to know about it, only got 5 of them,
Thanks all once again.

 

[Lateral Line]

You could always try to find some Botia almorhae, commonly called "YoYo" loaches, although I know them as Pakistani loaches. They are also snail eaters, but don't grow as big as B. macracantha, only 4-5"/100-130mm normally. Picture here.