Snail population control

[TROIKA]

Hello all. I'm new to the hobby and this website.

I have a planted 12 gallon nano that is doing pretty well but I have a question about snails. I have several kinds that I can't identify but they all seem to be doing a good job keeping my plants clean. The snails however seem to be having a jolly good time in there and I often see them on one another. I see areas of snail eggs on the plants too.

Do I leave them alone and let them self-regulate their population or is that not going to happen? Will they just keep multiplying until the population crashes?

I also have two ottos, a SAE and a team of amanos and cherries to compete for the available algae in the tank. I hoping that the snails will stop reproducing when the supply of algae goes down but I'm not sure.

Thanks

 

[tedr108]

I think that most snail explosions are caused by over-feeding your other tank inhabitants. The snails grab the extra food and multiply. Like most beginners, I always over-fed when I started this hobby and I had tons of snails (Malaysian Trumpets Snails [MTS] especially). I recently cut back on the amount of food I was putting in my 50G aquarium. In probably less than one month, my MTS population went to maybe 5% of what it was.

You seem to have mostly algae eaters. If you are not feeding them much and the snails are simply eating algae, I think you are correct in thinking that your snail population will decrease as the aglae supply subsides.

 

[BJRuttenberg]

The very best thing I found for snail control was a clown loach...granted he uprooted some of my plants because he liked to play in the sand, but after a couple of weeks I sold him back to the fish store - twice the size when I got him and best of all...no more snails!

 

[tedr108]

Dwarf puffers are also good at snail control. Problem is, they eradicate snails very quickly and then need live food, which is a PITA. Maybe some can be trained to eat non-live food, but not the one I had. I've also heard that dwarf puffers can be fin nippers (perhaps with long-finned or slow fish), if they are unhappy, but the one I had was very gentle with other fish. Unfortunately, my snails slowly returned after removing the puffer -- puffers do not eat snail eggs.

I think, however, clown loaches are better because they eat snail eggs also.

 

[Panda]

You can drop an algae waffer in the tank. Around 30 minutes later many snails will be around and on top of the waffer and then you can manually remove some of them. I do it every month or so to control any over popularion. It is always good to keep some of them.

 

[TROIKA]

Thanks all for the replies. I'll be keeping an eye on these buggers to see if the reproduction slows down as the tank gets crowded. I'll hate to put a loach in there and spoil all the fun.