hoggle75

ok a few week ago i got new plants for my freash water tank and the place that i got them from had a snail in with the plants now i have a 3 tank with snails in there and my dad has the same problem apart from pulling them out one but one or close the tank down which is hard as one tanks 300 ltrs what can we do to say good bye to them . as they are breeding like

purple_phoenix

If there aren't too many, it's easier to take some out every day until there are none left. If there are quite a few, you could always try anti-snail treatments (unless you have anything which might be affected, like shrimp). I always go with dropping a piece of lettuce or cucumber in, and removing it the next day - in which time it would have become covered in snails. This probably won't work on it's own - it's just a simple way to remove lots without adding chemicals or stressing other fish

To stop it happening in the future, you should either quarantine new plants or treat them with anti-snail or slightly salted water, and rinse them afterwards.

Good luck is all I can say - snails can be a real pain!

MrWaxhead

I personally love having my snails in my tanks, as they do way more beneficial work then harm in my tanks. And I find they only get out of control if you overfeed your tanks. If your tanks are balanced and the fish and shrimp consume what you put in the snails really don't explode in population. I have never had huge outbreaks and they don't harm my plants in anyway. And if I ever happen to loose a fish, (which is pretty rare) the snails and shrimp consume it before I usually notice, and in doing so save the fish from rotting and causing a ammonia spike.

purple_phoenix

The snails which arrive on plants are usually pond snails, which will eat healthy plants, and breed like crazy. Snails can be good for the tank as you say - they can clear up leftover food, aerate the substrate, etc. but you'd be better off going for ones like malaysian trumpet, mystery or nerite.

MrWaxhead

Well I have pond snails (came as guests on plants) as well as other types, and I really can't see any plant munching going on in the least. Call me odd, but I have even put pond snails in tanks that didn't have them hehe.

hoggle75

the tank that have heaps of snails i it no longer have fish in there and they keep laying eggs if i want sail i would have brough them i know that in the 300 ltr tank i have to use multy crue in there and that seem to kill them but i do not want to put that in a tank with well fish in there

Peterpiper

You may need to do 1 tank at a time if you want to kill them all, its a big job.
If you can treat the 300lt tank for 2 weeks then run a carbon in the filter to remove the treatment, do some large water changes and move the fish from one of the other tanks to the 300lt then treat the empty tank etc etc
When treating do it for 2 weeks, that should give any eggs time to hatch

sjlchgo

Clown Loaches are excellent snail control agents!

purple_phoenix

I don't see that having a few could do that much damage - it's just making the effort of keeping them under control. As sjlchgo said, this could be done with certain fish. Clown loaches are good, but they also grow quite big, and so contribute a fair amount to your bioload. If you're interested in using fish to control them, most other loaches do eat them, and also only grow to a reasonable size.