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View Full Version : Aaarrrhhhh - How do I get rid of snails



azza
Mon May 07, 2007, 09:40 AM
I need some help with my plants in my tank - I bought some a few weeks ago and unfortunately I didn't see the baby snails and now I have them in my tank and they are eating my plants : :shock:
Do you know of anything to get rid of them?

fiftycal
Mon May 07, 2007, 12:51 PM
Loaches!

Or use a plant friendly snail killer

Robdog
Mon May 07, 2007, 01:25 PM
Put a saucer with some food on it in the tank and remove with snails after a few hours.

duck
Mon May 07, 2007, 01:46 PM
Put a saucer with some food on it in the tank and remove with snails after a few hours.
A couple of biscuits or hot dog :).
Cucumber i hear works well,The loaches i'm 50/50 on that one.

fish_r
Mon May 07, 2007, 02:54 PM
i had really bad snail problem in my bigger tank and had 2 clown loaches in there and 1 yoyo, the yoyo was hopless at eating snails but the clowns cleaned em all up, i now have bugger all snails, the loaches ended up getting too big and were starting to harras the discus, so i took em out and sold em and going to put some smaller ones in again to keep it snail free and going to put another 2 in my other tank cause the snail are out of control :( clowns definitely worked for me...

Scotty Bils
Tue May 15, 2007, 11:57 AM
I like the idea of the cucumber! Nice. Let us know which way you go and if it worked.

I am thinking that you may have to be putting that plate in there a fair bit as the eggs hatch but you may be able to get it under control.

Bristlenose catfish will also eat the cucumber so if you have any of those in your tank they may get to it first!

I bought one (yes ony one despite what the shops will tell you) clownloach to get rid of mine and the loach works really well, hardly notice the snails at all....although I think that I am going to be in the same situation as Fish_R in years to come with a big menace of a loach!

Let us know how you go!

fiftycal
Tue May 15, 2007, 01:00 PM
I have heard that dosing larger amounts of Seachem Excel will kill snails. Im not 100% on that one though

DIY
Tue May 15, 2007, 01:15 PM
I used azoo's brush magic / brush killer and it cleaned up most of my brush algae and all my snails... unfortunately it also killed my bristlenose too. I did dose for longer than recommended though around 17 days instead of 14.

I'm pretty sure it's a copper based medication so if you don't have any bristlenose or other catfish then a copper based med like snail rid will get rid of all your snails and the plants shouldn't suffer provided recommended dosage is followed carefully

Erk
Tue May 15, 2007, 01:22 PM
I planning on using flubenol soon to get rid of my snails, sounds like you have to dose it once a week or so, to get the babies as the eggs hatch, still waiting on a lil more info on how to go about doing it in my tank before I do it

I was told it wont hurt my fish, or my plants, but a huge population of dead snails can impact your water quality, so I was gonna dose it, and the directions say no water changes for 24 hours, so I was gonna wait and do a water change right after that, and thoroughly vac everything to try to keep the population of dead snails down

I will keep you posted tho, if you would like...also, if anyone has any tips on how to go about using flubenol, that would be great! :D

Good Luck
Eric

fish_r
Tue May 15, 2007, 02:48 PM
myself i wouldnt be using any type of snail killing chemicals to get rid of snails as it's just not worth the risk to ur fishes health imo. this can be easily achieved by either using the bait method or clown loaches or both and will get rid of the problem reasonably quick with no ill affects to any of ur fish.
the only snails that my loaches didnt eat was cone snails which are easy to get out with a syphon.
but thats just my opinion...

Dave001
Wed May 16, 2007, 08:18 AM
I have 10 large Apples Snails in my tank, they breed constanly, nothing to have 10-15 lots of eggs on the lids at any one time, each of these hatches into 100-200 snails every couple of weeks, so far I have got 2 snails, from the thousands that have hatched, that have grown large enough to not be eaten by my pair of Clown Loaches.

I vote Clown Loach for snail control. :)

ansonvd
Wed May 23, 2007, 11:41 AM
What about zebra loaches? Do they eat snails too? (yes, they are ZEBRA loaches)
ansonvd