Sterilize plants and kill the snails

[Bad Inferno]

I am about to re-aquascape and I want to get rid of ALL the snails in my tank for the next setup. I have those stupid little cone snails... I will buy new substrate however how can I clean the plants when it comes time to replant. I was thinking a double dose of snail rid and place all the plants in a bucket for 4 hours.

Any other sure fire snail blasting tips....I do not want to dose the tank whilst I have fish in there. I also see a couple in the canister from time to time, so I suppose I will just have to look through my canister subsrate and pick any out I can find.

[Noddy65]

The big drama your going to have is eggs...teh eggs will be plastered all over the plants, tank wall, inside the filter, inside the filter medium, substrate etc...you just cant get rid of them...sorry.

Mike

[DiscusEden]

I've heard clown loaches? But I'd lay money that's the whole teaching you how to suck eggs thing (no pun intended).

[ILLUSN]

I had good results with a potasium permangenate dip, much less toxic then bleach and just as effective, i believe 1g/10L for 15min or untill changes from purple to brown, all eggs dead and no damage to plants

[JNS]

Loaches (including Clown Loaches) are a natural way to control/eradicate snails. I had a few snails that completely disappeared after adding chain loaches. I now have both chain & pakistani loaches in my tank and have never seen a single snail.

I have to admit I did not have an infestation; just a few odd snails here and there. If your tank is really infested, loaches may only reduce the population. But perhaps a combination of culling and natural predators could do the trick.

[Bad Inferno]

OK do clown loaches behave themselves with the discus.

[shawn barker]

OK do clown loaches behave themselves with the discus.

Yes they are fine untill they start getting big.

I put in three clown loaches to eradicate/control a snail problem and they did a fantastic job at doing it. However as they grew to 3-4inch size they started to beat the Discus to the food at feeding time and generally zoom around.

They were never outwardly aggressive to the Discus but now I have traded them in for some other Tetras the tank seems a lot more peaceful.

Snail control now happens when I worm my Discus with the Wormer Plus which has a side effect of killing snails, which is fine by me!

[ILLUSN]

Go dwarf loaches over clowns they stay small(er) are great snail eaters and are scared sh*tless of anything bigger than themselves

[pritch33]

hi Bad Inferno by cone snails do you mean the malaysian burrowing snail ?
if so i have found clown loaches useless against these type of snails as there shells are just to tough for the clowns
also they do not lay eggs they are live bearers and multiply very fast and will be almost impossible to remove from your substrate

shawn barker where do you get Wormer Plus from i have not heard of it do you have any other details as i would like to try it on my snails

Thanks
Ray

[shawn barker]

Hi Ray I'm in the UK so get it from local LFS.

Its not very clear of the main manufacturer but the design rest with Chris Ingham and it's made by D.Disuctq 124je for Plymouth discus.

The main active ingredient is flubendazole (50%)and it claims to deal with "tapeworms, helminthic, fluke and other large parasites and invertabrates"

It is also meant tobe totally save for all fish and plants and is UV stable.

Hope that info helps you find it...but since I've used it I have seen no snails in my tank and my fish seem in good health!

Shawn

[pritch33]

thanks for the the info Shawn maybe i should have looked at your location

Thanks
Ray

[Bad Inferno]

i DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW THE NAME OF THE SNAILS HOWEVER THEY CAN GROW UP TO 6 TO 8MM LONG and 3mm diameter. The adults are very very hard, the smaller babies do squash easily with your fingers against the glass. Could not not imagine any fish being able to break the adults shells...maybe "suck" them out !

rob

[psamers]

I have had problems with snails too, but a different species I'd say which look like very small (3mm) discs. On coming home from a months holiday I was greeted by a tank swarming with the things. On advice I tried a clown loach I had on hand and he was totally disinterested, which I had heard was sometimes the case. Plan b was a yoyo and he has effectively wiped them out in a week or two. I suspect though if I remove him from the tank (which would require me catching him) they'd probably be back, so until such time as he makes a nuisance of himself he can stay and share the tank with five large discus, and a few algae cleaners. Ohh and a lazy clown loach!