Snail Infestation

ibnozn

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Mar 7, 2008
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I'm having a problem with Pond and tiny Ramshorn snails and could use a cure. Tried a peroxide treatment two weeks ago which left quite a few survivors and burned my plants pretty well. I'd rather not have to do it again. I'm also hesitant to do any of the snail-icide treatments having heard they harm plants. Any other options besides tweezers?
 

VaughnH

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First you make sure you aren't over feeding. Snails tend to adjust their population to fit the available food. Then, you can catch a lot of snails, or so I have heard, by putting a slice of zucchini, parboiled, as I recall, in the tank at night. The snails are supposed to figure it is a banquet and all line up waiting for the main course. Let us know if it really works that well.
 

tedr108

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Snails in my tank also go after those fish wafers and are easy to scoop out at that point. Also, I use a little net to scoop mine off the glass now and then.

Another simple way to get rid of snails is having a dwarf puffer. I borrowed one from a friend and my 50G tank went from hundreds to zero visible snails in 3 days. If you buy a dwarf puffer, however, you are stuck with a fish that needs live food after that, which is fairly high maintenance in my opinion. It may be possible to train them to eat non-live food ... not sure. Also, this particular puffer has a very sweet personality and never went after other fish, not all are like that from what I hear. Another thing is that you need to make sure you are getting a DWARF puffer and not some other variety, which can be really rough on other aquarium inhabitants.
 

Ardell

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Feb 14, 2007
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Keep in mind that a even a dwarf puffer will eat any shrimp. They love inverts. I had dwarfs in a brackish setup with mudskippers and fiddler crabs. These dwarf puffers began killing my crabs by bitting tons of tiny holes in the shells. I had to setup the video camera to actually see it but they harrassed the crabs constantly throughout the day. Never did bother the mudskippers though.



~Ardell
 

creighton

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Jun 18, 2007
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Any species of loach will do the trick as well they will eat all the eggs and consume eat all of the ones small enough to fit in their mouth. I have 2 skunk loaches and 1 horse face loach in a 120 and I don't ever see any snails.
 

ibnozn

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Mar 7, 2008
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Thanks for the tips, I'll try the zucchini. At this point the snails seem to be rebounding from the peroxide so their numbers are stiil down and simply controlling them may work well enough. The tank is a 29 with Lamprologus Stappersi, Furcata Rainbows, Japonica Shrimp and Olive Nerites so I'll hold off on the puffer but consider the loach if it gets worse. Of course, the shellies will only eat the snails if I crush them first - go figure.
 

adechazal

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May 7, 2007
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2 small (1 1/2") long clown loaches keep my 180 gallon snail free. Every few days I see one of the loaches sucking on a miniature snail shell so I know they are multiplying.
 

VaughnH

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Clown loaches are extremely nice looking and they do rid the tank of snails. But, they also get to be about 6 inches long or more, and it only takes a couple of years or so. Then they still look nice, but do not fit at all in smaller aquariums.
 

creighton

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Jun 18, 2007
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My skunk loaches are full grown and there only about 4.5 inches and they do a great job keeping the snail population under control. I think with the smaller loaches its harder for them to get the bigger snails. So manual removal for the big ones may be necessary, but they will definitely keep the numbers down. Even the super small loaches will eat as any snail eggs as they can.
 

Homer_Simpson

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Oct 11, 2007
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creighton;24028 said:
Any species of loach will do the trick as well they will eat all the eggs and consume eat all of the ones small enough to fit in their mouth. I have 2 skunk loaches and 1 horse face loach in a 120 and I don't ever see any snails.


Do you know if this would hold true for Kuhli Loaches as well. A local pet store staff member told me that Kuhli Loaches will also eat snail eggs and help keep the snail population in check.
 

aug4you

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Feb 21, 2007
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Kuhli Loaches

I have 6 Kuhli's in my 75 gal and have loads of ramshorn snails. What works for me is right before lights out place several slices of cucumber weighted with plant weights. Lift them out in the morning snails and all. A couple of nights of this and snail population is reduced to a level I like. Also the Kuhli's love the cucumbers as well as Corys. In my 15gal that gets plant cuttings thrown in to I have 2 American Flagfish the best Algae eaters in my opinion but a little to nippy for my main community tank I have never seen a snail in this tank despite all cuttings coming from tanks having snails.