Paddi70

Is there something to kill them apart from my finger squishing them against the tank?
Had a bad episode when they were the dominate life form in the tank before carrying out a deep clean. All done now with one live plant, and already a small little f**ker is crawling around the shop.
Have not put any fish in yet as letting it build its own environment for a week.
Whats best for the snails to die??

g7prs

iTrader: (5)

When i had them in my tank it was a loosing battle. I had a couple of clown loaches which ate them and i also squashed them but in the end i transfered the fish to a spare tank and gutted the main tank.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

I have some apple snails in mine, which although they breed like hell for some reason in my tanks, seem to out compete the "pest" snails; they look a bit nicer and because they're bigger, are far easier to remove and provide a tasty treat to Eric.

Leslie

I thought that snails kept the glass clean.

Les

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

There are loads of snails in our fish tank but only two fish I'm secretly hoping that the fish will die soon so that we can get rid of the bloomin' thing, it takes up too much room on the work top, looks horrible and I need the space for my coffee machine

Paddi70

I too, wanted this, but was out voted.
Were now heading towards cold water fish set up, (Bloody goldfish).

WRX marv

there is a water tretment you can get,can't remember what its called tho...just ask your local pet shop...aslo keep tank light off as much as poss as light ecourages them to breed

Hungrytang

As mentioned above Clown Loach are the best way to get rid of snails but there never gone forever and will return as soon as the Loach are removed.

Also try putting a prawn under a saucer at the bottom of the tank over night and when you take it out in the morning it will be covered in snails.

Best avoid using water additives as they dont work very well and the snails would survive a neclear blast anyway......

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

Plus don't use anti-snail treatments if you do have Clown Loaches in your tank. The treatments contain copper, which Clowns are very sensitive to.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

Plus don't use anti-snail treatments if you do have Clown Loaches in your tank. The treatments contain copper, which Clowns are very sensitive to.

SWRTWannabe

Trouble is with live plants, you probably need the light on a fair amount. I've generally gone for the approach of removing the snails by hand.

Although they do eat the algae, they also contribute to the bio-load that the tank and filter have to deal with, and I have read somewhere that there are some varieties of snail that secrete toxins that are not fish friendly.

I have noticed that snails only seem to come with plants bought from a certain large aquatic chain, who are otherwise well regarded. Bought some plants online (java plants I think the place was called) and they were fine.

mart360

A nice big spotted plec usually gets rid of snails

well mine did


mart

Merv

iTrader: (12)

Clown Loach are good at clearing snails but need to be in a shoal of at least 4 and will grow upto 12" so if you haven't got a large tank they are not recommended.A smaller loach that can be found in good shops that do the same job is the Chain Loach(Botia Sidthimunki),or if you want something different try a Red Eye Puffer(Tetraodon lorteti)these are about the most peaceful of all the puffers and love snails.

Clarebabes

I had a snail infestation a few months back. What I did was remove everything from the tank, put the bogwood and rocks into VERY hot water and scrub them to remove all of the eggs laid on them. I then removed some of the gravel and cleaned it - not all of it as I think good bacteria live in it. Took out all of the plants and gently scrubbed the leaves where I could see the eggs.

I don't have many, if any snails now. This may have coincided with getting some brittlenosed catfish - do they eat them? Cos they seem to go mental on the bogwood!

I have clown loaches and they did nothing to prevent them. Perhaps they were too well fed on Algae Wafers!

I now have a problem with some sort of algae or moss growing on my plants. It's black and wispy - any ideas? Doesn't look very attractive. I don't really want to have to get rid of the plants and start again!