# Snails...snails...Lettuce? WHAT?



## inspiringmind (Jun 1, 2008)

I posted this elsewhere but I thought it would be better to post this here. I have a snail issue, and was on top of it as of yesterday. Today I look in the tank and there are like 13 of them! Someone said to put lettuce in the tank, but lettuce floats!!! How will the snails get to it? Do I put a rock or something to put on it to hold it to the bottom and side where they can reach the lettuce?


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## willow (Sep 9, 2006)

hello there
you can indeed place a small rock on top of the lettuce,
or just remove them by hand,
sorry i don't know the size of your tank,if it's big enough perhaps you
could have some loaches.


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## inspiringmind (Jun 1, 2008)

Thanks I will ancore the lettuce down. I have a 10 gallon so buying clown loaches is out of the question since they get so big. I was removing them by hand till this morning when like a billion of them showed up.


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## willow (Sep 9, 2006)

yes clowns will be too big,howver there are lots of loaches,
hopefull someone else will have an idea in the types
you may be able to have. 
do you know the type of snail you have,you could always,
find someone with puffer fish,and give them away


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## inspiringmind (Jun 1, 2008)

willow said:


> yes clowns will be too big,howver there are lots of loaches,
> hopefull someone else will have an idea in the types
> you may be able to have.
> do you know the type of snail you have,you could always,
> find someone with puffer fish,and give them away


I have NO idea what kind they are, but here is what I am going to do. I am going to transfer the live plant from the 10 gallon tank to a 1 gallon tank and see what happens...how big they will grow and then I'll take a picture and post it and see what kind of snails I have. Hopefully that will slow the snail population in my tank.


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Have you only got the the one live plant in the tank? If you're willing to take it out, you could always take it out, remove the larger snails from it, then give it a quick dip in bleach to kill off the smaller snails and the eggs they might have laid on the plant. Then, just rinse the plant in some water with dechlorinator (use more dechlorinator in the water than you normally would). That and the lettuce trick should help.

I had a snail problem myself and debated getting some loaches to solve the problem. Thing is, the only loach that really works in a tank 20 gallons or smaller is the kuhli loach, and they aren't generally very good at eating snails. That's the problem with the really good snail-eating fish - they're either big and/or need big groups to be healthy, or they make awful community residents (like dwarf puffers).


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## inspiringmind (Jun 1, 2008)

Well, I took the live plant out and one fake plant out too. (It had at least 3 on it that I could see.) Then I got about 2 more out of the tank and just squashed a few more that were really tiny, I didn't want them to grow and have more snails in the 10 gallon tank.

I have a dream to have a huge tank some day. It is all a matter of money though...since I own my house there is no landlord to tell me I can't have a 100 gallon tank...  

What is a dechlorinator? (I use water that has been ran through a purifier before putting it in a tank and that takes out the chlorine.)


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Dechlorinator is just regular water conditioner that removes chlorine, chloramine and heavy metals to make tap water safe for fish. Since bleach is basically chlorine, the water conditioner will neutralize the bleach so it doesn't hurt your fish.


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