what is the quickest way to get rid of myriads of aquarium snails?

[MiacCroFiche]

I think part of the entire ecosystem includes a way to manage snail overpopulation. I do LIKE a few in my tanks to do clean-up and DoJo's and most other loaches eat snails in the wild as a part of their diet. I doubt they are looking to eat rare endangered snails but are generally eating the ones that are over-populated. It also provides the Loaches with a little extra protein in their diet - it's not like we've taught them to eat snails any more than we've taught our barn cats to catch, kill and usually eat mice. It's Wild Kingdom out there (geez I could NOT watch that TV show as a child - it always seemed to start off with some Lion catching and killing a baby something and then eating the middle of it - sometimes when it wasn't quite dead, I hate that part of reality. But it bothers me to kill snails myself - I just try not to watch when the loaches do it.

I agree with you. But unfortunately life isn’t always as nice as we are. You should see our tank full of little orange snails.

Im going to try the loaches……..

 

[Byron]

I agree with you. But unfortunately life isn’t always as nice as we are. You should see our tank full of little orange snails.

Im going to try the loaches……..

Please, do not do this. You mention an overcrowded tank of mollies, so there is likely insufficient space for loaches. These are highly social fish that absolutely must have a group of five or more. Unless you like the loach species, and can provide what it needs to have a good healthy life, don't get them.

Some loaches are not all that good at snails anyway; I had Botia kubotai and Ambastaia sidthimunki and both tanks had snails all along (I wasn't trying to eradicate them, just noting that they remained in spite of the loaches).

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

I agree with you. But unfortunately life isn’t always as nice as we are. You should see our tank full of little orange snails.

Im going to try the loaches……..

Be careful...it's never, ever, a good idea to buy a fish to solve a maintenance problem.
This has been said several times, by those who know what they're talking about.

Loaches have their own specific needs and you did say that the snail-infested tank is already "a crowded tank of Mollies."

One of the many things that snails are good for is that they're a great indicator of the amount of waste available in the tank. Given that your maintenance problem might still exist, with the snails gone, you run the risk of the effects of the apparently poor maintenance remaining hidden, until your fish start dying or getting sick with who knows what unpleasantness.

EDIT: Seems @Byron and I were typing at the same time.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Don’t quash them that the most in efficient way to deal with snails just add loaches ( snail are super high protein)

No, it isn't.
1 - The tank has to be set up to meet the needs of the loaches and not all loaches have the same needs.
2 - Some loaches will eat the occasionally snail, some will gobble them up...some won't bother. It all deopends on the loach.

The 'most efficient' way to deal with snails is to manage the tank so that they don't get out of hand in the first place.

 

[Ichthys]

Stop feeding the snails and they’ll have no choice but to die off....

 

[Avel1896]

A natural harmless and good way to get rid of snails is :

 

[Ichthys]

They’re only there because there’s food for them to eat, be it algae/biofilm, plant material or uneaten fish food (or dead fish...).
Keep the substrate clean especially if it’s gravel, remove decaying and dead leaves/plants etc, and don’t add more food than the fish eat. Most snail explosions are caused by excess fish food.

 

[Colin_T]

Stop feeding the snails and they’ll have no choice but to die off....

That doesn't always work because snails eat fish poop, algae and live plants.

 

[Corypower]

No, it isn't.
1 - The tank has to be set up to meet the needs of the loaches and not all loaches have the same needs.
2 - Some loaches will eat the occasionally snail, some will gobble them up...some won't bother. It all deopends on the loach.

The 'most efficient' way to deal with snails is to manage the tank so that they don't get out of hand in the first place.

Both problems can be managed with research
Kulli loaches are nice

 

[Essjay]

If you mean kuhli loaches to eat snails, they don't. But if you mean kuhli loaches are nice fish to have in a tank, yes they are.

 

[Corypower]

If you mean kuhli loaches to eat snails, they don't. But if you mean kuhli loaches are nice fish to have in a tank, yes they are.

I was told that they do , I also had a kulli loach that ate snails

 

[Essjay]

Mine never did, they just chased the shrimps. But then I don't have many pest snails, just a few of them, even before I had kuhlis.

 

[Corypower]

Mine never did, they just chased the shrimps. But then I don't have many pest snails, just a few of them, even before I had kuhlis.

I guess it just an individual thing

 

[Essjay]

Not every fish behaves the way the text books say, there's always an odd one out.

 

[itiwhetu]

I have always used algae discs in a cloth. put it in at night take it out in the morning covered in snails. To start with you will need a net to get all the snails around the cloth.