# How to get rid of snails?



## zambit (Sep 5, 2010)

Hello,
Does anyone know how to get rid of snails in the tank? Apparently I had some hitchhikers on some plants I bought at the fish store. Even though I washed the plants and thought I got them all of, I have tiny snails multiplying in my tank now.


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## lorax84 (Nov 3, 2010)

Put a veggie or piece of lettuce in your tank over night. In the morning they will be attached to it and you can take them out. You can repeat this process as needed. If they are MTS you will probably never completely get rid of them but it will help when their population explodes. Also monitor your feeding, overfeeding usually increases the snails numbers quickly.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

lorax84 said:


> Put a veggie or piece of lettuce in your tank over night. In the morning they will be attached to it and you can take them out. You can repeat this process as needed. If they are MTS you will probably never completely get rid of them but it will help when their population explodes. Also monitor your feeding, overfeeding usually increases the snails numbers quickly.


Depending, you may have to starve your tank for a day or two for the lettuce trick to work.

For MTS, the only way to rid your tank is to break the tank down and switch substrates.

Overfeeding causes the population to explode, as lorax said. Managing feeding better will control the population.


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## Redknee (Feb 21, 2010)

There is a way that is as easy as it gets:
Antentome helena!
They will hunt and kill every single small snail there is.
I'd use 5 for every 50G of water if the outbrake is not to bad and 10-15/50G if the infestation is really bad.


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## zambit (Sep 5, 2010)

*Snails...*

Thank you for the replies. I am not sure what kind of snails they are. What are MTS? Also, my tank is planted. They seem to love my pennywort and have put a good dent in its leaves. Will the lettuce trick work with a plants tank? I could not find Antentome helena in the tropical fish profile. What kind of fish is it and what parameters does it need?

Thanks again for teh help.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

I think that's the scientific name for assassin snail.


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## Redknee (Feb 21, 2010)

zambit said:


> Thank you for the replies. I am not sure what kind of snails they are. What are MTS? Also, my tank is planted. They seem to love my pennywort and have put a good dent in its leaves. Will the lettuce trick work with a plants tank? I could not find Antentome helena in the tropical fish profile. What kind of fish is it and what parameters does it need?
> 
> Thanks again for teh help.


It's a snail that is very good at killing snails.
And it's also not a pest, it reproduces pretty slow and you can always sell the extra to someone.
I love them so much i actually buy substrate snail just to have food for my killers.


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## lorax84 (Nov 3, 2010)

MTS are Malaysian Trumpet snails, They like this.










If you have a planted tank the lettuce trick wont really work. You could look into an assassin snail. They will kill MTS in your tank and keep them from getting out of hand again. As was said above, the only other way to get rid of them is to break down the tank and start over with new substrate.


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## Redknee (Feb 21, 2010)

Before you go on a killing spree remember that this snails do NOT eat live plants.
The dents in your plants can be from a lot of reasons like bad fertilisation and/or bad light.
If your tank is imbalanced plants will die. The snails are just there(on the plants) to eat dead parts of the plant.
Things are not simple with aquariums and 1 wrong move can lead to disaster. No need to panic but plants do need things in order to grow and live. Like fertilisers, light, good water parameters, etc.
Just water and some light is not enough to keep your plants healthy.
Can you tell us what size tank you have, what lights, what fertilisers and what water parameters(NO3, PO4, Ph, NH3, NO2, etc)?


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## zambit (Sep 5, 2010)

My tank is 37 gallons with rounded small pebbles/river stones for substrate.

My tank is planted with: Planted with 2 moss balls, Java Moss, peacock fern (Selaginella Wildenowii), coconut (Peliosanthes Speciies), Argentine Sword (Echinodorus Argentiensis), gold ribbon (Dracaena Variegatus), broadleaf sageterias and Penny Wort.
The only plant that seems to be suffering is the Penny Wort. I have it floating and the snails like to sit on it.

There is a piece of drift wood.

I have 3 red platies (xiphophorus maclatus) plus fry, 3 and
6 neon tetras. I also had 3 panda cories that died just this week. 

The snail do not appear to be MTS. I looked up some info on snails and it looks like I have at least 2 different kinds that fall into the ramshorn type and pond snail type.

My light is on a timer for 8 hours and is a plant light (30", 25w)
Top Fin Power Filter 
I have an air stone.

PH from my tap is 7.8 but my tank is usually 6.8-7.0
0 nitrites, 0 amonia, slight reading on the nitrates (there are nitrates in my tap water).
There is also some phosphates in my tap water. I got something from the fish store to put in my filter to take of these problems but I can't remember the name of it. The fertilizer I use does not have phosphates in it.

Thank you for your help.


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## eileen (Feb 24, 2009)

I have Assassin snails and I love them. Their favorite food is Ramshorn snails and the common pond snail. They eat 1 snail a day. They will kill any snail but their own kind. I think they are a really pretty snail to have in a tank. I have them in a community tank and they are living side by side with 4 Amano shrimps and over a dozen Red cherry shrimps and do not seem to bother my dwarf shrimps. They eat any food with protein like bloodworms. I feed mine earthworm stick broken up sometimes. My local fish store sells them for 6 for $12 but you can get them on www.aquabid.com under invertebrates.


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## Redknee (Feb 21, 2010)

NO3 and PO4 are some of the macro elements that plants need to grow healthy. But if you don't want to go to high tech perhaps it is better to ignore them altho plants could benefit a lot from them.
Does your filter make any small water movement on the top? Like very very very small waves? If yes the airstone has no use, you can turn it of specially during the day, using an airstone pushes the CO2 out of the water and plants really like that CO2. 
Also plant light is a very vague term, a lot of the lights on the market are called plant lights(and sold as such) but they are actually crap and not worth 1 cent.
Can you tell me what make and model it is? 
In any case don't blame the snails for the plants, snails don't eat plants unless they are 100% starving, if they stay on your plants is to eat algae, dead plant parts and such.
I have all kinds of snails there are(freshwater snails) and i have never in my life had any problems with them eating healthy plants and i run 3 tanks and used to run 4 before i "closed" my 92G one.


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## Twitch (Jan 17, 2008)

Something we have tried at work and it seems to work as we have a ton of pond snails in the system but have seen a drop in population.

Take a baby food jar, empty out the baby food. Punch holes in the lid that are large enough for a snail to crawl in but not large enough for a fish to get into the jar. (Small Kuhli Loaches loved getting into the jars)

Fill the jar half way with arugula or another type of lettuce. You could also add a veggie wafer or algae wafer but we have found that the arugula draws them in fine. Lay the jar on its side and once a day remove the jar and remove snails that have made their way in. They will also lay eggs in the jar so you can get rid of these too. 

We are running 6 jars in our system and when removing the jars daily, we remove about 50 snails per day. Now with a big system like we have, this isn't much but if we were running even more jars, we'd make a nice dent in the snail population.


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## Chicklet (Feb 9, 2009)

> ramshorn type and pond snail type


To think they don't/won't eat healthy plants is just setting most people up for a big surprise,

These guys do love to kill and eat healthy plants, So don't be fooled otherwise.
Small numbers you won't notice so much and they may even only eat mostly at the dead leaves, but let the numbers grow at all and your plants will all suffer, 
Seen it too many times in to many tanks, People being told not to worry and then they find out the hard way.
These snails Do eat healthy plants,

Perhaps some of you folks have no bad luck with your snails, But look around you, MOST people do have troubles, Some very serious troubles, It would certainly tick me off and understandably so, When told their great to have and then get knocked over the head with a disaster hitting their tank that's definitely not easy to rid of.. 
Their are zillions of these same posts plastered all over the internet forums etc,


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## Redknee (Feb 21, 2010)

If they are not starved they will not touch plants.
Fcourse that if you have 1000 of them in 30G they will eat plants simply because there is not nuff food to go around.
People don't eat people but if you stick 1000 of them in 1 house with no food at all and no ways to get food in the end people will eat people. It is a very basic concept. With no food available you eat what you can.
So unless the OP does not have a serious infestation there is nothing to get all scared about.
Again, i have 3 tanks now, used to have 4. From 92G to a 3g, all with snails, all kinds of snails and i have NEVER had any problems. 
"Perhaps some of you folks have no bad luck with your snails" you can't just make a statement like that.
It's like saying some bears eat meat some don't. They either all do or don't (under normal conditions).
Again, if forced anything will eat anything, heck i'd eat worms or cats if i had to survive but only if i had no other choice.
If the tank is seriously infested with them you have a problem, if not you just blame the first fool that comes to mind and that is usually snails.
Most people who cry over plants being eaten by snails have very low tech ferts/lights and such plants are not healthy, lot's of them die and snails snack on the dead parts of the plant. They then see bad looking plants with parts missing and they have an epiphany! Snails eat plants! OMG where do we run now! 
Ask someone who has a seriously cared for tank with healthy plants and snails and they will tell you they have no snail problems at all. Ask some new guy in the hobby(who is yet unfamiliar with the whole plants, nutrients, etc) and he will instantly blame the snails for all the problems in the tank.
I also read as many "snail eat my fish" or "killer snails got my fish" posts as you claim to have seen about snails eating plants. Answer was the same, fish was dead, snail took a snack from the dead body of the fish.
In any case the simple solutions are 2:
assassin snails(cheap, perfect for the job and nice to look at) OR snail traps and i would use fish food in those traps or spirulina tabs. Both fish food and spirulina are more tempting than veggies and will catch more snails than veggies. 

http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=535693#ixzz18Hyujuvw​


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Redknee said:


> If they are not starved they will not touch plants.
> Fcourse that if you have 1000 of them in 30G they will eat plants simply because there is not nuff food to go around.
> People don't eat people but if you stick 1000 of them in 1 house with no food at all and no ways to get food in the end people will eat people. It is a very basic concept. With no food available you eat what you can.
> So unless the OP does not have a serious infestation there is nothing to get all scared about.
> ...


Exactly.

To add to that, the cutting back on feeding method works for controling the snail population, but it takes time. You should see the difference in 3 months or so. The reason it takes so long is because as the snails starve and die, the remaining ones eat them.

I think "the snails killed my fish" is just as funny as "the filter killed my fish."


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## redchigh (Jan 20, 2010)

Redknee said:


> Before you go on a killing spree remember that this snails do NOT eat live plants.
> The dents in your plants can be from a lot of reasons like bad fertilisation and/or bad light.
> If your tank is imbalanced plants will die. The snails are just there(on the plants) to eat dead parts of the plant.
> Things are not simple with aquariums and 1 wrong move can lead to disaster. No need to panic but plants do need things in order to grow and live. Like fertilisers, light, good water parameters, etc.
> ...


+1.
I have 4 heavily planted tanks, and pond, ramshorn, and mts snails in every single one (on purpose.)
Their population is small (about 10-15 snails per tank), and they only eat a plant if it's already dying. 
Snails have such a bad rep... I like them. I keep assassins in one tank, but more to sell the assassins than to kill the other snails.




Chicklet said:


> Perhaps some of you folks have no bad luck with your snails, But look around you, MOST people do have troubles, Some very serious troubles, It would certainly tick me off and understandably so, When told their great to have and then get knocked over the head with a disaster hitting their tank that's definitely not easy to rid of..
> Their are zillions of these same posts plastered all over the internet forums etc,


This isn't a concept that just pops up. Look at the experts- Tom Barr, Diane Walstead, (Byron), they all write about snails being harmless.

If you insist, then go buy about 6 pygmy chain loaches. Your snails will be gone in a week. (Did I mention they're $30 a piece?)


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