windymeadow

I was just reading about pond snails further down on the posts. I have two itty bitty ones that hitch hiked in on mondo grass. My nine year old is attached to them already and has named them (Linus and Charlie Brown). I don't want them to take over or multiply or anything dreadful like that. Do I need to relocate them to a pond when it gets warmer?

Phloxface

Pond snails are pests and should be disposed of. Even leaving one will mean hundreds very soon. You don't need two to reproduce. Just take them out, pour boiling water on them and throw away. You don't have to tell your kid anything. Letting them go into the enviroment is not responsible. It's like capturing live cockroaches and letting them go outside. I know some here seem to have some misplaced sympathy for pond snails but they are NOT anything like cute Mystery snails which are nice pets. They will infest your aquarium and make it ugly. I know. When I was a kid I had a large aquarium and it was so full of pond snails you couldn't see through the glass sometimes. No amount of cleaning helped. The aquarium had to be thrown out eventually.

tan.b

i agree....i spend most days reducing the snail population! dino suggested putting some lettuce in the tank, then when the snails cover it, remove it. not found any lettuce yet to try this out! i've been using cucumber which certainly attracts alot of snails. over feeding can cause snails to reproduce quickly too as the cucumber method tends to demonstrate! i remove lots, but lots of babies appear too! also if i put an algae wafer in a shell, this attracts alot of snails, again, once they're all in there the shell gets dunked in boiling water to remove any babies and eggs that cant be seen clearly. it is practically sterilised! I also pull leaves off plants if i see any eggs on (a clear blob with white dots in it. the dots tend to be arranged in a circle shape) and again these get thrown out!

good luck (mine hitched a ride with plants. now i get them from a diff place with no snails!!!)
Tan

cherryrose

I am a person that happens to like pond snails. I don't let them live in the same aquarium as my fish though. I provided a nice one gallon jar home for them. A large goldfish bowl would be even better. You can put some plants in the bowl/jar, a very small amount of gravel, about 1/4 of an inch, and presto you have a snail tank.

They will reproduce however, so you will need to remove the babies from time to time, unless of course, you plan on having a zillion snail jars/bowls around.

I personally think that if your son is attached to the snails, you should provide them with a home where he can have them. Your tank thus will be free of snails and your son can still have his pets. I forgot to add that you will need to feed your snails algea wafers, some zuccina, and other small pieces of vegetables.

Just my opinion, but I hope it helps. CherryRose*

Eskielvr

You're not supposed to release anything into the wild. Doing so can upset the balance. They even have it printed on the bags at Petsmart when you buy fish "Do not release fish, snails, or plants into the wild."

0morrokh

Despite horror stories people will tell you, pond snails really shouldn't take over the tank as long as you don't overfeed. They will reproduce, don't get me wrong, but the size of their population is directly related to the amount of food available to them. Keep the tank nice and clean and you shouldn't have any problems with them.
I have pond snails in my 20 gallon, and they have never been a problem. I have never removed any of them and my population stays low as long as I don't overfeed. They actually make a nice clean up crew, since they will eat dropped food or dead plant leaves that the fish wouldn't eat.

tan.b

in my 28 gal tanks there's a few but they're not a problem, there's so many fish no food gets left, but in my 15 gal they take over!! its cos the loach doesnt eat the algae wafer quick enough, so the snails take over!!

0morrokh

Same thing was happening to me for a while...I cut back on feeding the catfish and the snail population went right down.

tan.b

funnily enough thats what i've started doing! this morn there was no algae wafer left in there and was going to replace it, but then decided to just gave some flakes for the tetras which was enough for them to eat in 2mins, then no more algae wafers for the week as algae has sprung up everywhere and i think my loach is getting lazy at cleaning and just eating the wafers!! so hopefully by rationing this week my snails will stop breeding and my loach (and maybe even my shrimps?!) will start cleaning?! i helped him out today and cleaned the glass and gravel, he's just got the plants left to clean! i guessed if fish can live a week without food, mine will cope on rations for a week!