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

[MiacCroFiche]

We have a crowded tank of Mollies. We are having. Heck of. Time finding a home for bout twenty Spotted Mollie fry and about twenty extra Mollies under a year old.

My husband over feeds them sometimes nd now our tank has become infested with snails.

Neither or 70 gallon Chiclid tank nor or 55 gallon Oranda tanks have that problem. One snail in the Orandas tank none in the Chiclids.

 

[Colin_T]

squash the snails

 

[ICEEGRL]

Loaches eat them. Just pick one that works with your tank and fish. Mine had red lips and striped. Can't think of the name right now but it worked well for me.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Before I had my DoJo loaches I just manually spent about 30 minutes a day pulling out snails - hundreds and hundred of them. I continued to do that for about a month and eventually got rid of all but two or three (snails do help keep your tank clean you just need a few) Sinnce I stopped overfeeding them I only have about 3 snails at any given time. I have another tank with DoJo loaches and I feed some of the loaches to them - but they'll eat until their sick if you put too many in at once. I like to keep less than 5 snails in any given tank and if it starts to go over that number the loaches get a nice snack. No loaches? (and the DoJo's get to be upto 2 feet long) then I would just continue to remove them by hand and throw them out. It may take a couple of weeks of doing this but soon you'll have it under control. Just remember they are good at keeping your tank clean (within reason). Good luck!

 

[NannaLou]

Put a piece of blanched lettuce in the tank overnight, you’ll remove 100s at a time in the morning

 

[Sunnyspots]

Beer traps! (No, not really...).

 

[Slaphppy7]

Assassin snails will take care of them, but they too will breed...just not as prolifically as pest snails

 

[Byron]

Never, but never, acquire a fish or another snail to deal with this issue. Other fish have their own needs to be healthy, and may have more problems associated with them than benefits if they do eat snails. If the tank is suited to such fish, fine, but most of us with this issue do not have this. Similarly, never use chemicals (no one has suggested this in this thread, but it has been advised in others). These are always detrimental to fish, and perhaps beyond.

Colin's method is the only safe one. You must ensure the snails do not somehow get into the local ecosystem, as by being inadvertently flushed down the toilet (thinking they are dead when they are not, hence the crushing). Assassin snails are not the answer; there are now areas in the USA where these somehow got into the environment and have decimated the natural snail populations.

 

[NannaLou]

I put the lettuce leaf in several sheets of kitchen paper, in a sand which bag and then use the rolling pin to squidgy them…make me feel a bit and the it goes into the rubbish…

 

[hansgruber7]

Just get an assassin snail. They do a great job of cleaning up unwanted snails.

 

[Shiverz]

That all depends on the manner you want to get rid of them. I wouldn't advise getting other fish/snails to clear your tank of the snail population, each and every fish will bring their own needs to your tank and some can be hard to keep. On a personal level, I find it unfair to get a living thing just to do one job when you have no other attachment/need for it.

If you want to get rid of snails humanely, then I'd suggest what many others have and putting some lettuce in the tank (I'd go for organic and thoroughly rinse before putting it in just in case of pesticides etc), or you can fashion yourself a home made snail trap to capture the critters. Once you've caught them you can give them to a fellow hobbyist who keeps fish that feed on snails, or to your LFS, if they'll have them.

Though realistically, I've known people that are unable to even give their caught snails away. The best thing to do is to crush them unfortunately, one by one until you have gotten rid of every single one of them. I'd also advise doing this outside of the tank, I can't imagine the mess it would make if it was done inside and I'd wager it could even cause problems to your tank.

Dont catch and release your snails, this can lead to a spread of invasive species within your area, and you'd be surprised how quickly species can spread, I do believe there is a problem in north America as a result of an invasive mussel species which originated from hobbyists (I'm not 100% on the information, but I'm pretty sure moss balls were banned in certain areas because of this). Just, don't ever release into the wild unless you're a professional and you know what you're doing. Also just "binning" a living organism isn't enough, it requires destruction.

So morale of my post is... catch and kill is most likely the best method unfortunately.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

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.

 

[Corypower]

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

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Make a snail trap.
I was going to describe how to make one and then I discovered Rachel O'Leary uses the same method. It's a video, so way better than my mumblings;

DIY Snail Trap

Once you've got them, you can either squish them between sheets of kitchen roll, with a rolling pin, or feed them to those that eat them.
Of course, if you've got a plethora of spare tanks to go with your myriad of snails, you could have a snail-only tank.

 

[Essjay]

Fish should not be bought to solve a problem, they should only be bought if you actually want to keep that species.