Getting rid of snails

[waitaki]

Damn pesky snails have breed in my discus tank, so far I have been picking them out and discarding them with the waste water. When I cleaned the filter last I noticed millions (well maybe not that many :wink: ) of little snails in the filter wool. Has anyone used any of the snail rid products in the discus tank? I have a product called snail away, it contains 1g/l copper - oops - it says not to be used in soft water tanks - I know the water here in Perth is hard, but I don't think I'm filling to try..
on that note any other suggestion on getting rid of them???

[Dave+Amy]

why don't you try biological control? we have 10 Chain Loaches as well as 2 Zebra Loaches in out Discus tank and it's free of snails..PLUS they look awesome since they school

[waitaki]

sounds like a plan! I have avoided putting anymore fish in coz I have stocked discus to limit - 10 or 11 - 10 I think, in a 440 litre with 2 pep b/ns:) But I do like the look of the loaches so maybe I can squeeze them in and do more w/cs

[jesx57]

I also had a snail problem whilst my tank was cycling so I went and bought some yoyo loaches. I haven't seen a single snail since.

[abyss]

The only 100% way ive eliminated the little buggers is to start again, boil all substrate, throw out plants and unfortunatly boil or replace all filtration.
It sux but it works. :cry:

[Hollowman]

Please don't go and add more fish, specially loaches! :shock:


Take as many out by putting a lettuce leaf in over night. This will remove most of the adult egg layers and the smaller ones too. You will have to weigh down the leaves as they float.

If you can, remove the fish and treat the tank with PP after wiping down the sides and bottom (if BB tank) The PP should knock them out.

HTH

H :)

[zar]

The african butterfly's will eat them, I tried a lot of things but african butterflies worked best. and apart from that they're nice looking dwarfs that can live alongside discus with no issues. They'll cost you around $10 each.

[m.ingram]

i had the same problem with my tank several years ago i put in clown loaches as snails are there favourite food.recently tryed yoyos but found that they annoy discus by running up there sides.

[carnival]

Two YoYo loaches cleaned up my heavily snail infested 2 foot tank, but as already mentioned they do seem to harrass Discus, which is where I put them when they had done their thing in the 2 footer, ended up taking them back to the LFS for adoption.
I could hear them crunching the snails when the tank lights were off, and the tank was lit only by the room lights, and everything was quiet.
YoYo's must be a snails worst nightmare!!

[Dave+Amy]

I have 10 chain loaches in my Discus tank and they don't bother my Discus at all and since they're smaller they get into all cracks and holes..I do have a well planted tank so it's important for me to keep the snail population down..but then my tank isn't as stocked as yours.

[waitaki]

used the lettuce leaf last nite - only caught 2 :x I'll try again tonite
I got more when I took one piece of driftwood out and left it in the sun :lol: hah and they thought they were save in those cracks where I couldn't get them :lol: :lol:

[Hollowman]

I have some Flubenol15 which is a wormer, it kills all snails, and then you just siphon out with a water change, but lettuce is good.

[waitaki]

I'll ask about Flubenol at the vet's tomorrow but i don't think it is available here. I'll keep up with the lettuce thanks Hollowman!

[rwel4809]

another trick is to put some other food - a little beef heart works a treat - in a small film canister or other small sealed plastic item with a snail sized hole in it. overnight the snails will flock inside and you can remove them in the morning... This is basically the same as the lettuce leaf method, but I have found that they are more attracted to beef heart...

I also have some dwarf chain loaches, and I often find little snail shells empty in the gravel, which makes me think they're doing they're job... but I do still have a bezillion snails!

I defer to Hollowman's greater experience, :) however I wouldn't ever add chemicals to get rid of snails - they're not that harmful, and you can find that any meds may have some other effect on other fishes that you weren't counting on....

Oh, and I'd just chuck out the snail infested filter wool if I were you :D

HTH

R

[Hollowman]

Thats a good idea rwel, I like it. I think the trick is, is to remove the adult egg layers first, the have a good wipe down and PP bath everything.

:)

[waitaki]

the wiping down with PP tho - can I fill the tank back up and put the discus back in - I haven't got room to keep 11 discus elsewhere for long, I might just have to keep them in buckets while I do that

[ILLUSN]

snails always took a major hit in my tanks after repeated treatments with prazi and metro, i didn't intent to kill the snails just worm the fish, treating with prazi once a week for 3 weeks wiped out the snail population. i had similar results when i last did the system with metro at 25mg/L every 48hrs for 5 cycles, snails havn't come back since.

[waitaki]

that's a lot of metro for 440 ltr tank!
correct me if I am wrong 440 x 25 = 11000mg per dose;
1 tab of metro = 400mg so 11000 / 400 = 27.5 metro tabs
times 5 treatments - I would need 138 metro 400mg tabs.
How will the discus go being treated with metro if they aren't sick?

[ILLUSN]

mate they were sick, and that was the point of the treatment :) i didnt have a spare bare bottom tank at the time so i had to treat in the display tank, dropping the water lvl to1/2 way helped save tablets (14 per treatment) but thats typical of what i go through when i have to do a treatment.

when i see the vet for metro they just order me a bottle.

like i said i wasn't aiming to kill snails just save fish, the snails died and it was a welcomed bonus.

[waitaki]

yes I understand your aim :lol:
maybe prazi will be a more practical option for me...
Can't imagine what the vet would say if I asked him for even 70 tabs :shock: It's a hard enough job trying to get them to give the amount I need for a hospital tank :roll: still they aren't so bad now they know what I need them for.

How treatments of prazi did you notice the snails expiring?

[ILLUSN]

I hit them with prazi once a week for 3 weeks, by the 2nd treatment the snails were VERY crook and by the 3rd they were dead.

again the aim wasn't to kill the snail just the worms and then the snails just dropped dead.

[Dave+Amy]

I had to use Prazi to treat my Discus for worms, would the loaches get sick from eating snails that are dying from Prazi treatments?

[ILLUSN]

my 2 yoyo's and 6 dwarf loaches were fine.

[pink66]

damn those pesky snails.. :roll: :x :roll: thankfully I do not have any at all in my discus tank 8-) 8-) (probably should not speak tooo soon) but have had a total snail explosion previously in my community tank.. there was sooooo many of the little blighters that you would swear that the gravel was moving :shock: :shock: I even put a bounty on their head for my son to collect as many as he could :lol: :lol: :lol:

In the end the only thing that worked for me was running boiling hot water thru the substrate, wiping down the sides of the tank and decorations.. carefully checking out all the plants..

Finally, they were all gone :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: I am now totally paranoid on everything that comes within 10 ft of my tanks... just incase

hope you can get the better of them :)

[Dave+Amy]

There's a product they sell here called Snail Rid - has anyone tried this?

Was recommended to use it but am worried if I overdose the fish would die, different people tell me different things - some people's fish were absolutely fine while others died.

[ILLUSN]

snail rid is copper sulphate its great against snail but also deadly to brisstlenoses and loaches.

on a side note live bearing trumpet snails can withstand 5x the dose on the bottle with 3 connsecutive treatments(after a wc) with no problems at all

[Dave+Amy]

wow ok I'd better lay off the Snail Rid then...there's just no win-win when to comes to snails