lolly877

Hooray! on the good side finally worked out how to post my own thread so hi all and hope you can help!
The problem is my tank has suddenly become invested with little snails now last time this happened i used a snail control solution but just after putting this in i lost my 2 new golden loaches...don't know if this was related or not but guessing it might be after reading some of the other threads now obviously don't really want to use any of these solutions again and liked some of the other ideas people had for getting rid of them and i read that putting veggies in the tank over night could help but was wondering if anyone could tell me what veggies would be good and that wouldn't harm my other fish hope you can help thanks lynne

voiceless_kat

Hi Lynne.........welcome to the forum. I have snails also, some I have on purpose, some I do not. ( The pond snails)

I have two methods of getting rid of those....if they are on the glass near the top of the tank, I squish them with my finger. ( Ewwwwwww - I know )

The "nicer" method if you are squeamish is to put a piece of washed ( if not organic) lettuce leaf on a clip or into the tank and leave it, and the snails will stick on it to eat. Then just lift the lettuce leaf out early in the morning . I use romaine.

I feed my "good" snails zuchinni & cucumbers also, and the little pond snails will stick on that also, but you get more on lettuce.

It doesn't work as quickly as chemical control, but doesn't hurt anything else.

I thought loaches ate snails, maybe that is clown loaches - I am not very knowledgeable about loaches so hopefully someone else will correct me if that is not right.

Good luck!

Val

ThisGuy

If you don't have bottom feeders you can put pennies in the bottom of your tank but when i got pond snails and ramshorns in my 29 i just picked out the ones that i could see and baited them with cucumber. It worked they are no longer in that tank. Do you know what type of snails you have? because if they are Malaysian trumpet snails they are not that bad

Identification link
http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=14

Killing snails link
Pest Snails.......How to Prevent/Exterminate them (feel free to ask questions)

lolly877

Hi thanks for your help both of you...Thisguy i followed your link and from what i can see i have ramshorn snails so now i'm quite concerned as it says these can carry 'disease' I've got some cucumber so i'll try that tonight should the cucumber be peeled?or can the skin stay on and i'll go buy some lettuce tomorrow thanks for your help again i'll let you know how i get on

ThisGuy

I just slice it skin on it works well, put it in at night and check again in the morning there should be some snails on it if you have lettuce you can try that as well, make sure you wash it throughly because of pesticides. P.S cucumber floats you will have to clip it to the side or weight it down in the tank.

Good luck

Ryan

COBettaCouple

The problem with chemical anti-snail means is that copper is used to kill them. It's also harmful to fish.

It's a battle that you just fight a day at a time, luring them out, pulling them off the sides, sucking up eggs or snails with a turkey baster when you see them. In extreme cases, cycling a new tank and moving the fish to that so you can sterilize everything in the tank that has snails. But you can keep them under control and eventually get rid of the little buggers.