Freshwater Limpets?

[shoggoth43]

I seem to have an infestation of limpets, or something similar. They're roughly oval and from the side look like the top half of a clam shell. They don't seem to move around much, but they're all over the place now. Any idea what these are and how to kill them? Unfortunately they snuck in on some plants and now all of my tanks with shrimp have them, so wiping them out might be somewhat problematic.

Would something like a nerite or assassin snail get them, and hopefully the hydras, without attacking the shrimp?

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S

 

[csmith]

I seem to have an infestation of limpets, or something similar. They're roughly oval and from the side look like the top half of a clam shell. They don't seem to move around much, but they're all over the place now. Any idea what these are and how to kill them? Unfortunately they snuck in on some plants and now all of my tanks with shrimp have them, so wiping them out might be somewhat problematic.

Would something like a nerite or assassin snail get them, and hopefully the hydras, without attacking the shrimp?

-
S

Not exactly guaranteed to be true, but.. carnivore snails. Or going by that same page, you could put a bird in your fish tank. That'd be cool.

A tad more info here.

 

[Philosophos]

Freshwater limpets definitely exist, and definitely get into tanks.

IME assassin snails will eat a couple snails here and there, but they aren't a quick fix. If this is your CRS tank, you're probably left with bait traps and manual removal. I've got pond snails in a shrimp tank with assasin snails and it's a long haul getting rid of them. The shrimp are hard enough to catch that clearing the tank out and gassing everything with CO2 isn't an option.

 

[shoggoth43]

I don't have so many shrimp in that tank that drying it out and letting it sit for several days isn't an option. I guess that would deal with the limpets and the hydras, but that won't help my other tanks unfortunately. I'll look into the other snail options maybe.

-
S

 

[csmith]

If moving the shrimp is possible, why not move them out and throw a few of your cardinals in there for a week or two? Your hydras would be gone in no time.

 

[Philosophos]

Cardinal tetras wouldn't bother shrimp. I doubt they'd take out the limpets either though.

Remove the shrimp, gas the rest with CO2 perhaps?

 

[shoggoth43]

Maybe I should go with the bird idea....

Do you think I could use a Heron? I heard they get big though, probably need one of those huge 10 gallon tanks.

( sorry, I was reading the MonsterFishKeepers site earlier )

-
S

 

[Biollante]

Cheap & Easy

Hi S, All,

If they are limpets, it really should not be a big deal.

Freshwater limpets, Patella spp. (I think) are clean-up artistes; they eat bacterial slime, fungus decaying vegetable matter and poop. They are not as far as I have ever been able to tell, a threat to any healthy plant.

As with various gastropods the best you can do is, "try" to keep them out.

My recent observations in various methods of sanitizing plants have shown me that while Potassium permanganate, Alum, bleach, CO2, soda water, H2O2 and so forth are all effective means for knocking out 99% plus, of gastropods. The eggs are the problem, the eggs are just about impossible to destroy without significant damage to the plants.

The only method I found reliable was ten consecutive days of sanitizing dips. For the record, I found all methods worked, I found the Potassium permanganate to be the cheapest and easiest, and I am nothing if not cheap and easy.

The best method to rid a tank of snails is to run a clean tank, be careful not to overfeed the system. When you see a snail, remove it immediately.

As for myself, I like the little critters.

Biollante

 

[shoggoth43]

I'm less concerned with the limpets overall as they don't seem to actually DO anything. I'm fairly certain the hydras will kill baby shrimp, and I still find the odd dead adult. However there's no real pattern with it, so the best course of action may be to just pull the shrimp out and gas the tank w/DIY CO2 for a couple of weeks. The plants will likely be fine in the process and may even enjoy it. My other tank has a scraper I just run across the limpets to smash them so that seems to work to keep their numbers down. Plus with all the other shrimp in that one I don't think they have as much food to start with. The smaller tank has plenty of algae on the glass but seemingly little on the plants and I suspect that's because of the LED lighting I threw in and how long it's on for. Given it's a fluval edge tank I'm a little leery of DIY CO2 on it since I won't have much in the way of control for injection but that might be another option later on.

Hmmm.... Maybe I could use a solenoid to bleed off the pressure at night instead of directly regulating the flow of CO2 like we normally do with a solenoid. That gives me on/off but I still don't know how to regulate the overall amount into the tank. Thoughts?

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S