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Ok, i just turned to look at my tank and I noticed two snails moving around in the gravel. Now, my tank has been set up for 1.5 years, fake plants, a few rocks, gravel, and a couple pieces of wood. Nothing has really changed in all that time either, i.e. no additions. So, where have these snails come from? they are the cone shaped snails, how bad are they and should I be digging around in the gravel trying to find more of these things before they start multiplying even more?


ok, upon further inspection I see that i have a serious infesation of snails. My gravel looks like it has the worms from tremors in it, constantly moving. So, will my fish eat them and do I need to get rid of them?



[span class="edited"][Edited by JackFrost 2004-07-11 19:26][/span]

Sounds like malaysian trumpet snails. You may have had them for a long time and never noticed because they mostly only come out at night.

They aren't harmful, they don't eat plants and keep the substrate turned over. Your fish are not likely to eat them unless you have clown loaches or similar. MTS have very hard shells that make them a more difficult meal than most other snails.

To reduce the population, turn the lights out at night, then come back after about an hour and pick out all the snails you see. Keep doing that for a few days and you will cut the population fairly significantly. Don't expect to get rid of them though, once you have them, you pretty much have them.

I would avoid snail killing chemicals unless you notice major problems in the tank from the snails, they tend to cause more problems than they solve.

I don't want to add any chemicals b/c it might kill my rams or borellis. Im just pissed b/c I don't know where they came from. Funny part is the lights are turned on and I noticed them. I hate snails.

They can come from these things:- plants, bogwood, gravel, sand & rocks. They are pests & so not much welcomed.

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Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
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I would deffinetly not consider malaysian trumpet snails as pests.

You probably haven't seen them because as mentioned above they "usually" only come out at night and also spend a lot of time underneath the substrate.

I do not consider them pests because they do abosutely no harm to your tank, only good. They do not eat plants, only food that makes it's way down into the gravel, dead fish and even algae. I purposely brought a bunch home from my lfs to help keep my tank clean down in the gravel.

As I said before, they are nothing but good for your tank and my suggestion is to just leave them be...

The most probable thing is the plants if you have them that is anyway they are good as they eat all the poo and left overs!

i dont think the eat poo malawi freak alot of people think this but i dont think it is true!

Well, I don't have live plants in my tank. So, it they are not a problem I will just leave them.