SNAILS

[kalebjarrod]

purchased some plants the other week,

BINGO! my tank has a million little red snails all over it.

how do i get rid of them, if you say take out all the plants stones and fish i will NOT BE IMPRESSED.

[lesley]

Hi kalebjarrod

I have a dreadful feeling that if you want them all out you are going to end up NOT BEING IMPRESSED!

I have the same problem with my three tanks. The BB are relatively easy I can scoop most of them out, the planted tank though is a different matter. Because I have soft water I have used calcium carbonate directly into the tank a couple of times to stop a pH crash and I do know that they hate the liming effect and lots die. I have overfilled the tank a couple of times so that water is sitting on the glass supporting struts (or whatever they are) put some food there and in the morning you will find them all up eating the food, easy to scoop out. Some always survive.

Then I got talked into clown loaches. Have three young ones who ate snails madly for the first few weeks and now prefer discus food.

I actually think that a few are beneficial, they eat old scraps of food, but I fear that you may have to learn to live with them.

Lesley

[nicholas76]

Kale,


ive had the snail issue several times before.

Ive tried clown loaches which worked really well, but personally i prefer doing the vacuum clean.
You will miss some but eventually you will get them all.

ps. whats the temp of your tank? if its low pump it up, i just recently put mine on 29-30 and all my snails did the floater.

cheers


nick

[kalebjarrod]

So doing the VAC gets rid of some,

my tank is heavily planted and i have problems cleaning it with my VAC let alone trying to get all the snails out.

i'll give that ago today.

my temp sits at 29-30 and the snails seem to love it!

do clown loaches disturb the discus? they seem preety active to me!

i thought they would stress my fish (my sons already have the job of scareing the snot out of them) and i am sure they don't need any more disturbances!

any other advice

[nicholas76]

clown loaches will work

get some young ones, not old.

note - if they find an alternative food source theyll go for that too.


they keep to themselves and generally want nothing to do with discus IMO

cheers

[kalebjarrod]

note - if they find an alternative food source theyll go for that too.


seems like an idea i can work with, what sort of food?

do you think i could make a trap for them with this food?

maybe like a piece of 1inch pvc with a cap on one end at the bottom of the tank?

Ryan

[Proteus]

if i can find my JBL Snail trap I will send it to you as a loaner...

...now to do some digging around

:roll:

[kalebjarrod]

i am intrigured? can i see a pic?

await further posts proteus

Ryan

[Proteus]

more info can be found ...

HERE!!! (http://www.jbl.de/uk/zube/uk_diverse_art.html)

:wink:

[kalebjarrod]

when you say JBL i think of some of the best sound systems in the industry.

NOT a snail trap.

sorry to be a pain, got a better shot, i want to see what i can build

[kalebjarrod]

i've made a mkeship trap out of PVC.

the snails are attracted by the food and move inside.

i then remove the trap and wash it out with hot water.

the only problem is the food source, i tried my beef heart mix but after a few hours in theier it went all mushy and in the process of getting out the trap tiny food particles went EVERYWHERE

same happened with my tetra bits, although the snails where much more attracted to this food source.

both these methods ment i had to clean the tank after use.

i now have in some pumpkin bits and i will see how these go.

if not i think zucchini will work.

if anyone has any food source that snails love that will stay together after a period of time underwater please post

[nicholas76]

interesting idea,

how long did you leave it in?

[flukes]

use lettuce or cuecumber for snails. Will have much better results.

[kalebjarrod]

i normally leave it in over night,

tried pumpkin last night and got a pretty good result.

it would work much better on a tank where you could touch the bottom, i lose a bit of snail poo out of my trap while i get it to the surface

but its still not a bad idea

[happydiscus]

what exactly are these snails they look scary