Tank infested with snails

[Sabrina]

Hi all, my discus tank is infested with PEST snails! I have just moved my fish out and taken everything out of the tank except the water so far. I cant remember what advice i was given to get rid of these PESTS. Please can you help me with ideas on how to now get rid of them? They are in the sand, on the glass and up in the filter! Im going to tear this tank apart until i get every last one of them. My driftwood is drying out on the sink due to having hundreds of snail eggs on them. Please help

[Sabrina]

This is the tank right now..

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[Hollowman]

Near impossible to get rid of, but you could use a strong solution of potassium permanganate to kill everything in your tank now. It has the effect of taking all the oxygen out of the water killing anything living. The problem is that this will kill your filter too, surevthere will be eggs in there also.

Use boiling water over the wood or just remove all and clean with boiling water and start again. They are a pest and cause irritating problems.

[Krissy]

Oh no Sabrina that's terrible. I don't know if this will help but I've read that if you get a clean jar, put a small lettuce leaf in it and fill it with aquarium water and sink to to the bottom the snails will be attracted to it and you can remove them. The jar needs to be left in there for a number of hours. Apparently you have to repeat the process but if you've taken all your discus out I imagine a number of jars might work faster. Some sites say to blanch the lettuce leaf first but I don't know if this is a good idea as the lettuce would decay faster and pollute yr water. Hopefully someone on the forum can confirm this is a good solution or offer a better one. Cheers

[Sabrina]

Hi guys, thank you very much for the help. Im so impatient that i ran to the pet store and they gave me a bottle of snail rid to use in the tank. I have to take out the rest of the carbon and then dose the whole tank with this stuff. Then i have to soak the plants and driftwood in this stuff too. Its Blue Planet Snail Rid.. I have to treat it today and then again in 3 days time. So my poor discus are going to be cramped up in the 100 liter tank for a week. After treatment i will do a full clean and total water change in the main tank. Fingers crossed this works guys!!

[Sabrina]

This is my 100 liter tank that the discus and everything is crammed into at the moment. I hope nothing goes wrong!
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[sayid]

Sabrina ;
You are right ,you are very impatient , it probably would have been much easier ,less costly and more freindly towards your fish if you had taken the time to have a plan of action towards elimination of your snail ,for start snails are not absolutely detrimental to your fish they are more of pain in the *** and they are ugly ,but you have had them in your sand for a long time ,as steve advised you correctly you cant pick them up and get rid of them even if you do you miss one or two and in a week you are back to square one ,it was me who told you that you can get rid of them using praziquantel ,but snail rid is fine ,the reason that you have to repeat in 3 days time probably is to get rid of their eggs , i don't think you need to breakdown your tank but if it makes you feel better go ahead , if you have snail in one tank you probably have it in you other tank as well because you swap plants and drift wood etc between tanks .
As Steve advised you have to think of good bacteria in your filter ,i know it is lot of work but if it has to be done ,it has to be done .
You just mentioned CARBON in your tank ,do you know that if you use carbon in your tank or filter ,you need to change it every 2 - 3 weeks and if you don't the carbon will release all those nasties back in to your tank and make your fish sick .
hope this helps .
sayid

[Sabrina]

Hi Sayid, thank you for your comments! Sorry im so impatient, its a flaw i have i cant help. The fish are doing ok at the moment, but its going to be a long week and a half for them before they are back to normal in their own tank. I have no idea what this is going to do to my cycle, i guess a test after all has been complete will tell the tail. I knew the carbon expired but didnt think it was every 2-3 weeks! Im glad i have removed it all now for that reason, perhaps that might have been why my fish were getting sick. I have plenty of matured ceramic noodles to replace the carbon in the filter so all good there.. And yes i will have to do the other tank too now, even though i did clean the plants etc before adding them to it. It seems i do everything at 100 miles and hour with best intentions but bad results. Hopefully with fingers crossed things will work out ok after all this. Thanks again Sayid

[sayid]

Just a reminder not to feed excessively till your filter catches up with the good bacteria ,regarding carbon i have found them to be more trouble than they are worth ,people put them in tanks to get rid of the nasties but since there is no sure way of knowing when the carbon is saturated they forget about it and the next they know the carbon has released the nasties back into the water and the fish are sick ,BTW i am not saying your fish died purely because of carbon but no one knows .
sayid

[Sabrina]

I will be careful with feeding thank you. When the treatment has finished and i empty the tank i will be taking all the old sand out and discarding it, i am tossing up going bear bottom but that will mean i have to paint the outside bottom of the tank for reflection reasons, or i will just replace the sand with new sand. I am leaning towards new sand, perhaps black this time. I will be washing the filter media and ceramic noodles in a bucket of tank water from the other tank before returning it to the hood for use, im worried im going to loose my cycle in this process but it needs to be done. I have stability on hand so im not too concerned if i do loose it, but its a shame to start again. I am also soaking the driftwood in the snail rid too, do you think that will be ok or should i buy new driftwood too?

[sayid]

I think your driftwood will be fine but i have not got too much faith in stability ,regarding black sand there is a school of thought that the black background would cause PB type discus to have peppering .
sayid

[Sabrina]

Something else you would suggest other than stability? Yes i know of the peppering, in this case my PB is already covered in pepper..

[sayid]

I can't think of any other alternative at the moment but i am sure other members are going to suggest some thing.

[Hollowman]

I am not sure about this product as I think there is not real alternative to proper aging of a filter.

Black sand for me is not such a great idea as Sayid has said, pb's will pepper up a little more plus you can't see poop so easy when cleaning.

[Sabrina]

Thanks Sayid..
Hi Steve, i understand what you mean about proper aging of the filters but i have used stability and found it to be effective in the past.
I almost cant deal with white sand anymore, besides poop it gets debris everywhere from driftwood and general junk. I only pulled out the plants and driftwood and just look at the sand now? Its ruined.
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[Hollowman]

It's not ruined, it's normal. You have stirred everything up and the dust has settled. Siphon off your sand and it will be clean again.

[Sabrina]

Oh, sorry i thought it was ruined. I wont siphon it at the moment as the snail treatment is in the water so i dont want to disturb it killing the snails.
Should i try going bear bottom instead? I have been discussing painting the bottom with others, its a big job and i dont want the tank out of action for too long though. Im a bit lost at what to do about sand etc
I have just had a quick look at the tank, its almost like the snails have disintegrated, i cant see any on the sand glass or in the filter. I wonder where they went. I noticed them all heading for the top when i put the treatment in but cant seem to see any now. Poof gone

[Hollowman]

Ok, first thing to do is........................ breathe in..............hold..............breathe out................

Right,

I would give it all a good stir and make sure the treated water will get all through the sand, kill everything. Use a rubber squeegee to wipe the glass sides, as the snails eggs will be on the glass too, then leave to settle and hopefully every bit of residue is on the sand again. Treat the water again as directed after a few days just to really nuke the newly hatched snails and leave again to let it work.

Now, my trick when cleaning sand was to get a length of garden hose and attach it to the threaded end of a caulking gun tube. Most hardware stores will have them, if not you can use a small plastic drinking water bottle and cut the bottom off (hose in threaded end) As the diameter of the bottle is bigger than the hose, the sand will get lifted and the dirt (dead stuff) siphoned out, without losing your sand.

Hey presto... clean sand, all the crap gone.

Remember Sabrina, simple is best.

[Sabrina]

Hi Steve, thank you for your patients. I am about to stir the sand up and wash the sides of the glass, i only have a cleaning magnet so i will use that thoroughly. Then i will let it all settle again until wednesday when i need to dose treatment again. My siphon already has a big end on it and it lifts the sand as i vacuum, so to save money i will just use that.

I am worried about the filter media (floss type stuff) being full of all this junk, should i replace it with new media after the treatment? I still have ceramic noodles in the filter too, will they have soaked up all the junk as well? I just dont want my fish to get sick if the filter is still full of that crap.

[Sabrina]

The tank is up and running again today, no snails in sight! Has been drained and re filled, filters washed out and some things put back in after soaking for a week. Prime and Stability added. Will run for 24 hours before adding some catfish first to jump start the cycle again, while adding Stability for a further 6 days..
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