Snails, Leave Them Or Get Rid Of Them

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Sorry Tokis, I have to disagree with adding Copper. On the scale of things it is up there with Lead and Mercury when it comes to being poisonous to fish especially at lower pH. Adding it may also kill any inverts such as shrimp.

Purposefully putting Cu in tanks is such a bad idea. Out of desperaration, I fell into that trap believing that these snail killing products actually did 'something' - in my experience they do not AFAIK. If you read the labels on some of these products it states that they only 'knock them out'! What's the bloody point in that...

breed massively out of control if you are over-feeding the fish, or have a lot of algae in the tank or don't clean the substrate enough

The ones I had just seemed to multiply like rabbits. My tank is clean (weekly vacs) and algae free - I ended up picking out at least 30-40 PER WEEK.

Picking them out obviously helps but will never be a solution. The eggs are clear and almost impossible to spot. Also, if you use an internal filter they ingrain themselves in the media, making them almost IMPOSSIBLE to get out.

Been there, seen it, tried everything, got the Blue Peter Badge. THEN I got some Flubenol! Gone within 2.5 weeks.

Andy

I said copper fish friendly meds- these would include a large majority of anti-parasitic medications for fish (like anti whitespot, velvet and internal parasites meds etc), treating fish with such medications is not harmful for them as it is a short term thing only, but such meds can also be used to kill off snails- in fact a large majority snail killing chemicals contain copper. A carbon sponge can be used to get rid of the meds in the water after treatment is finished- personally though, i've never used chemicals/meds to kill of my trumpet snails as i don't mind them in my tanks and their population tends to stay more or less the same, however i did notice when i used anti whitespot or an anti velvet medication in the tank once, the snail population seemed to lower a lot.
If you had a very clean tank and a snail population problem, then it is likely they have found some sort of other food source- does your tank happen to have a gravel substrate in it? Even if you clean the gravel very regularly, as long as you have fish which you are feeding in the tank, gravel makes the ideal substrate to trap food in for the snails to eat on a daily basis. I noticed that when i changed from gravel to sand substrate, i stopped having bad snail population problems.

In my experience snails will only breed massively out of control if you are over-feeding the fish, or have a lot of algae in the tank or don't clean the substrate enough or simply have a lot of bottom dwelling/feeding fish in the tank which need to be fed sinking foods etc. Given that, i've always had a pretty large trumpet snail population, but i think that is due to all the cucumber i feed my pleco's which needs to be sunken to the bottom of tank.

With getting rid of snails, you can either pick the snails and eggs out of the tank by hand, or used a copper based fish friendly med to eradicate the snails (however copper based meds will harm any invertebrates you have like shrimp etc).

IT isn't due to overfeeding as I am doing a fishless cycle at the moment. Will they just die off as there isn't any food being added or will they feed on the plants I have in the tank.

Yes if there isn't any food for them to eat, they will die off. In my goldfish tank for example (not planted), with the powerful filtratation and the goldfishes constant rumaging around in the sand substrate, the substrate is always spottlessly clean and i have never had snails survive in the tank as a consequence.
Most snails will not eat live and healthy plants, the majority of snails will only eat dead or decaying plant matter or algae growing on the plant leaves, so as long as your plants are healthy and the area around them is kept clean, then the snails shouldn't be able to survive off the plants.
As Goldlenny said, you can also get certain snail eating fish/loaches as well which will make short work of any small snails in the tank (i would only advise these fish though if your tank has enough space and the right fish stocking for them to live happily in it though), most of these snail eating fish are loaches which are sociable and need to be in groups of preferably 3-4 individuals or more.

 

[Underwurlde]

copper fish friendly meds

An oxymoron if ever I heard one. Copper is a poison. Period. The LEVELS in these meds are 'fish friendly', BUT copper is accumulative.
I don't know whether a carbon sponge will actually remove the copper....

Anyway, lets agree to disagree. If someone wants to pour poisons into their tank, so be it. I have pointed out a copper free alternative that does not rely on: Getting snail eating fish, stripping down & cleaning, changing all your gravel, picking them out, using copper based meds, cucumber, blah blah blah.

Andy

 

[KiltedOne]

Looking in my snail infested tank this morning and I noticed that I now have 2 different kinds of snails, I now have what looks like Planorbids, Ramshorn Snails in addition to the pouch snails that I mentioned before.

Are these as bad as the pouch snails.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

copper fish friendly meds

An oxymoron if ever I heard one. Copper is a poison. Period. The LEVELS in these meds are 'fish friendly', BUT copper is accumulative.
I don't know whether a carbon sponge will actually remove the copper....

Anyway, lets agree to disagree. If someone wants to pour poisons into their tank, so be it. I have pointed out a copper free alternative that does not rely on: Getting snail eating fish, stripping down & cleaning, changing all your gravel, picking them out, using copper based meds, cucumber, blah blah blah.

Andy

Sure, i will agree to disagree. Personally i would only advise using chemicals as a last ditch resort for any such problem in a tank like algae or snails, finding and treating the root source/cause of the problem is often the best way to treat snail population problems, as i said before i have never had to use snail killing chemicals, i found that it was the gravel substrate that made dealing with the snails an issue and once i changed that i have never had any bad snail population problems since.

 

[Paradise_2]

i have found a couple af golden apple snails in my tank. Are these pests or not because some LFS's sell them??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

i have found a couple af golden apple snails in my tank. Are these pests or not because some LFS's sell them??

Nah they're not pests, apple snails grow very large and are very attractive "ornemental" snails. They lay their eggs in large clusters above the water level and are not prolific breeders like trumpet or common pond snails, its very easy to keep control of their population IMHO.
Info and pics on apple snails;

http/www.applesnail.net/

 

[Paradise_2]

so my apple snails arent a problem then but i also found a ramshorn snail which i took out because i know they are a problem