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Im getting alot of common snails. Are they bad for the tank? Ive tried taking them out by hand, swishing them against the glass, feeding them to the gouramis, baiting them with lettuse...
and still have tons of them.

`Haven't had any hitchhikers for a while but from memory they don't do any visible damage to the plants. Some people find them unsightly in their tank but I don't think they affect things too badly.

Baiting them with lettuce didn't work? Rats! (btw that's an exclamation not a recommendation)

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If you've got the room you could put in some loaches. I think most of them eat snails. I know my clowns do any extra snails go in with them.

Mike

Well, depends on who you askI can't stand them Some of them eat plants, others don't...in my opinion they make unsightly messes when they lay their eggs, and are just plain nasty in my opinion. Keep smashing them, pulling them out, and if you have room get some loaches, they are cool and do a good job as well...otherwise, add a nice big piece of lettuce at night, In the morning, you'll have tons of snails on it, take it out, and do it again, and again, and again...eventually they begin to go away...good luck, heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Snails are pests & once you have them, it's quite difficult to eliminate them. Just kill the ones you see or add some Loaches, if you have space in your tank. You can also try to fish them out with a piece of raw meat & once you see it full of snails, just pull it out of the tank & rinse it in water & put it back again.



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Clown loach did nothing to reduce my ramshorn snails and need a big tank, I spent $17. for a medium one and no snail reduction, so I traded with a contact for a large amazon sword. This worked well as the person had one clown already so now both have company. I had one before that loved snails. Pond snails yes for sure, Ramshorn babies but will leave adults alone, shell too hard. How many gal is your tank ? Overfeeding the tank also leads to population explosion..

A pair of YoYo loaches would be your next bet, smaller and love snails. If you're breeding anything in the tank or keep guppys or small fish/shrimp yoyo's or loaches in general are a bad choice. I was changing tanks anyway so I scrubbed everything well and dipped all the plants with potassium permanganate dip. No more playin for me.. If there's any eggs in the filter, I'm pooched though.. One more tank to re-do (1o gal with apistos and shrimp, MTS, pond snails and ramshorns) and will bleach the tank then dip the plants. Again, they may be in the filter.. Copper not an option here or the 'had a snail'. Apistos sensitive to chems and heavy metals, shrimp to those plus copper will kill em. MTS are good snails.

Snails benefit or nuisance ? It's all up to your personal opinion.. Some pond snails and ramshorns can wipe a planted tank and you may get sick of seeing them everywhere, including in your filter.

Copper will kill snails, use a few OLD pennies and put them in your filter (if you do not have shrimp) This'll do it quite nicely. Continue to remove any you see by hand. Good luck !

The Amazon Nut...

the lettuse didnt work cause of my mystery snail, crushing them pushes up my amm. cause of the decaying bodies when u crush that many.

will having lots push up the amm/waste in the tank

i was thinking of borrowing a clown loach for my tank to get rid of them since i dont have the room but it wont hurt to have him for a month or two. are there smaller loaches that eat snails?

i do think im over feeding im kinda guessing how much i should feed

any suggestions for

1 gold and 1 black mystery snail
5 neons
5 glowlights
5 harlequin rasbora
1 dwarf gouramis
1 power blue gouramis
1 pearl gouramis
2 dwarf frogs
1 villavo pleco (L147) (six inch pleco)

as for the snail killing copper, i've found that 1 penny to 5 gallons works wonders. Be warned, however, that sensitive fishes like loaches don't like a lot of copper, nor do plants.

I don't know how your pennies are in canada, but in the US you'd want brand new shiny with no corrosion pennies. True, they're not made of solid copper, but the outside is still a copper coating, just the inside is the zinc alloy, so it will work just as good.

If not, just collect 'em and have escargot for dinner

i cant use copper due to the big snails ild love to but it would kill the big guys too

do they add to the bio load of the tank?

Nothing you add to the tank will kill the pest snails without killing the mystery snails. I have the same problem in my tank. You could get a small container like a film canister and punch a hole in the lid then put some bait inside. This way you catch little snails but no fish or applesnails. Really any container works if you can put a small enough hole in it.

thats a good idea didnt think of that

my pondies r good mine r albino bred em my self (took over a year) and now i have about a dozen good sized babys (about 3mm) and a couple that r like 6mm, and another that is like 10mm, but they r pretty, and i will have pics up as soon as they get a bit bigger

I don't see what the big fuss is over snails. If there is no damage, then don't worry. You could wind up doing mnore harm than good.

but they eat my plants