Snails!! Ahhh!!

[heyimeugene]

I just got home from church today and looked in the tank... to my surprise I found 1 snail about 1 cm and 3 really small snails on the window.... should I remove them or keep them?

If I remove them why? And if I keep them why?

Thanks!

 

[dixaisy930]

Well, if you don't remove them, you'll have a tank of all snails. lol

However, you can leave them, and (if you have room) could get a snail-eating fish, such as a yo-yo loach. Other fish that do a grat job of keeping a snail population under control are puffers. However, it's almost impossible to keep any kind of puffer in with other fish (but it can be done).

If you buy real plants, you'll probably always have snails though. Personally, I like have one or two...just something about em.

 

[Teelie]

It depends... what type of snails? Do you have plants? Fish? Do you mind a few snails? Despite the above post, they don't breed like mad unless conditions are ideal which is easy to control the best by keeping food to a minimum for them to consume.

 

[heyimeugene]

I have plenty of live plants and I don't over feed, I'm actually wondering if I'm underfeeding? Well.. I can deal with the snails I guess.. more work trying to dig them out anyways... Thanks!

 

[Teelie]

IMO there's not such a thing as under feeding unless you never feed them. If anything most fish are over fed and too fat which causes more problems than being under fed. The snails won't breed quickly or a lot because the amount of food will prohibit it, unless they're plant eaters then you might run into a problem.

A solution I don't think anyone's ever suggested (and might be for a reason) is to add a piece of copper to the water. A penny or wire or whatever. Copper is deadly to snails and should kill them.

 

[heyimeugene]

Will the copper affect my water/fish in any way?

 

[thellama]

some fish dont like the copper..

i have like 40 malaysian trumpets in my 10 gallon tank..

i jus think of them as a wicked cool cleanup crew..

they dont bother me a bit..

but yours might be from the plants..

those arent as cool, but will still eat lots of crap

 

[Mo99]

A solution I don't think anyone's ever suggested (and might be for a reason) is to add a piece of copper to the water. A penny or wire or whatever. Copper is deadly to snails and should kill them.

Sorry to steal this thread, but copper ?, how . Do you mean to say that the copper ie as in water pipes etc, if placed in an tank will give offa discharge that is like poison to them , so is it like smoe sort of smell liek thing whcih just drives them away ..Sorry i 've never hear of this one, And would liek to know more. Can i use it in the graden pehaps ?

Mo.

 

[luxum]

I'm in the love snails crowd. I have a (low light) planted tank and the snails never eat my plants. They clean the algae off the leaves and i occasionally add an algae tablet to the tank if they have cleared all the algae off the plants. My plants are mainly very tough leaved and slow growing, so maybe they are more of a problem in planted tanks with tastier plants. I have ramshorn, pond, and my favorite, malaysian trumpet snails. Malaysian trumpets are great because they burrow around in the substrate and you rarely see them since they mainly come out at night. Snails also clean up uneaten fish food. People who have tanks that are overrun with snails are generally overfeeding. If you don't overfeed, the colony will grow to a reasonable size (you'll see a few, but it will never reach infestation population levels) and maintain it.

Exception to my previous comments are the giant "mystery" apple snails they sell at the LFS. Those are voracious plant eaters if you don't supply the veggies they need. If you want to keep one of these large snails you need to feed it spinach, zucchini, etc. If fed enough greens, even the big snails will leave the plants alone. Only keep one of these types unless you want lots of them, if you keep more than one and find a gelatinous mass out of the water (usually under the hood) you might want to remove it, those are the eggs.

 

[Teelie]

A solution I don't think anyone's ever suggested (and might be for a reason) is to add a piece of copper to the water. A penny or wire or whatever. Copper is deadly to snails and should kill them.

Sorry to steal this thread, but copper ?, how . Do you mean to say that the copper ie as in water pipes etc, if placed in an tank will give offa discharge that is like poison to them , so is it like smoe sort of smell liek thing whcih just drives them away ..Sorry i 've never hear of this one, And would liek to know more. Can i use it in the graden pehaps ?

Mo.

No, not an electrical discharge. The copper is literally poision to snails because it gets in their exposed flesh and causes death. I can't remember exactly how it works only that it's an effective way to do away with snails.

I don't know if it is safe with what fish or in what quantities which is why I was saying to be cautious with it. Someone who has more knowledge on it can help though I am going to look up some information on using copper as a Snail deterrent.