Snail erradication options

[Si]

Hi,

Got a small infestation of snails which is really starting to piss me off now Anyways the tanks setup as follows:

Planted with bogwood, sand substrate, halide lighting, heater cable. Stockwise corydoras, ancistrus, ottocinclus, japonica shrimps, soon to get some apistogramma borellii & cardinal tetras.

Not sure on the species of snail but very soft shells, circular in shape like a twisted vine if you get my drift.

Some research has revealed the following options:

1/ Botias - either clown loach (macracanthus), striata or rostrata (later two prefered as allegedly not as susceptable to white spot - how will the striata/rostrata do with apisto/cory eggs/fry? I know the clown will search and destroy, same for the others?

2/ Remove all plants and bleach them to kill of spores/eggs etc. This wont work as i'd have to do a total tank stripdown & bogwood would be tainted with bleach.

3/ chemicals of some sort i.e. copper based (Clear Water(jungle), eSHA or Gastrophex). Although not a fan of chemicals, whats the effects likely to be on the shrimps and potential fry from the apistos/corys?

Any other suggestions?

Si

 

[farm41]

Do you know anyone that you can borrow the botia's from? Or, just buy some to do the snail cleanup and then take them back the lfs. That's the optoin I would consider. All botia's will gladly gobble up any eggs/fry that you might have.

Copper will take out your shrimp, and the bleach dip is likely to miss eggs that may be on the glass and substrate.

When I have had those type of snail I would just smash them on the glass and let the fish eat the meat.

 

[Si]

Cheers Matt,

Unfortunately I dont know of any bots I can borrow. Prob is of course catching em if I do go that route!

I'l just have to hope the apistos take a liking to them & for me to crush em when spotted

Si

 

[farm41]

I think rams eat the tiny snails, at least I have never seen a snail problem in a ram tank.

Right now I have a explosion of MTS's in 2 tanks.

The other method is to put a vegetable, such as lettuce or cauliflower in a saucer and pull it out in the morning, it will be covered with snails.

I feed my ancistrus some veggies once a week, and it always attracts the snails. The other day I dropped in some cooked cauliflower, in 2 hours it was completely covered with MTS, if I would have had it in a saucer, I could have lifted out hundreds of MTS.

 

[_BaDgUy_]

I think rams eat the tiny snails, at least I have never seen a snail problem in a ram tank.

Yep, they do love snails!! I'va had a snail problem once in a tank, just before introducing a pair of Rams. For the small snails, the Rams would hunt them down, and suck out the meat. For the bigger ones, I'd have to crush them on the glass, and the Rams would eat the meat.

After about a month, I'd actually have to fish out snails from my other tanks to feed the Rams!!

 

[SoCalSar]

Snail eradicators

The best snail killers I've seen are dwarf puffers. They get about 1 1/2 inches long and are a true freshwater puffer. You'll see them sold as dwarf puffers, pygmy puffers, pea puffers, green-gold puffers, Indian puffers, or sometimes a combination of these! A couple of these guys keeps my 60 gallon snail free. I scoop snails from another tank for them sometimes and watch the carnage. They won't go after bigger snails but once you've gotten the easy ones out yourself you won't see another snail. They're not aggressive with other fish, but can be opportunistic fin nippers. I've seen it a coule of times and it only seems to happen if another fish cruises by and lollygags around long enough to be an easy target. Keeping them with slow movers that have tasty appendages might not be a good idea. As long as they have snails to "hunt" and are fed daily they won't bother with anything else. They've got a lot of personality going their way too.

 

[Pooky125]

What about a yoyo loach? They only get about 3-4" stay small, LOVE snails, not as suseptible to ich as some of the other loaches... Mine was always rather spazzy, but didn't mind being the only of its kind. If your looking for sumthing small botia sidamunki (sp?) stay very small, and also would do a great job with snail clean up.

 

[Si]

Cheers guys,

My only worry is how would the apistos fare with the rams or loaches? Rams seem a nice choice but never even looked at adding them to this tank.

Seeing i'm having apisto borellii, which rams if any would be suitable tank mates?

Si

 

[farm41]

M. ramerezi is a wonderful addition to an apisto tank.


As far as the loaches go though, they will eat any apisto eggs and fry they can get.

 

[Si]

Thanks again Matt

Got the A.Borellii in now (sep post) - just gonna research the M. ramerezi

Si

 

[Si]

lol had a problem finding anything on M. ramerezi

so I tried Microgeophagus Ramirezi instead

Looks like i'll order a couple

Si

 

[farm41]

thats it 8)

 

[Borked]

I have had really good experience as of late with copper sulfate. I did see someone mention that your shrimp will be lost but that was not the case with me.

I was fighting Ich and trying to save as many plants as possible so my outlets were slim. I used metronidazole for a while with limited results. I then grabbed a bottle of "stainless Ich remedy". 1.1% copper sulfate. I dosed with it for 5 days (and wrote off my shrimp) and not only was the Ich taked care of, the malay livebearer problem I had was removed as well. I have 5 amano shrimp that have had no visible ill effects. The female i have (has tons of eggs on her, for 6 months now) still hand feeds as she did before. She comes to the surface when I open the top and pokes out from a lilly pad and I hand her a chunk of food. She then happily swims off to eat.

There is another snail product that works well but it is a higher dose of copper sulfate. The product is called "Had-A"Snail" and it has some confusing labeling. The packaging reads 3.8% copper sulfate, while the bottle inside reads 1.61% copper sulfate. I chose to use the 1.1% and it worked well.

Then again I do have 2 dwarf puffers and 2 botia sidthimunki (dwarf loaches) for the snail problem. Though they never really put a dent into the snail population. The only drop in snails was after the copper.

HTH,
-Kyle

 

[carrieann]

Ok, I just got some plants + CO2 injector + powerhead + new lights today and after a couple of hours have noticed a few snails. I don't think more than five, but who can be sure? From what I am understanding, snails are bad, right? And copper gets rid of them? I have a bottle of SeaChem Cupramine that I have never used. Would this be a good treatment? No fish yet, just plants and a handful of snails.

Thanks for suggestions!

 

[aspen]

hi carrie ann. if it were me, i would consider the time taken to tear down that 20 gal and remove and kill the snails (an evening) time well spent. snail shells in the substrate will bleed carbonates into the water (granted slowly) and raise ph. this will be esp noticable the lower you try and get the ph, like when you are trying to breed your fish. also, having the bodies rotting in the substrate is not the most healthy situation either. bite the bullet, you won't be the first. loaches only eat the soft bit. the hard bit (the shell) is left to dissolve.

how does anybody tolerate seeing thse buggers crawling up the glass when you want to look at the fish? they are like cockroaches to me.

jmo, rick

 

[carrieann]

Ok, I take all my plants out; should I rinse them off or dip them in something? Or just eyeball them and pick off the snails I see? Then should I completely empty the tank of water take out all the gravel and rinse it? Won't that disrupt my first layer of laterite? Sorry for all the dumb, new-person questions! I know that I not only want to get rid of the big snails, but also their eggs/larva/whatever else there may be. In the future when I get new plants, how should I treat them before I put them in my tank?

Thanks Rick for your suggestions!