Bladder Snails Infested Tank

I have recently discovered tiny bladder snails in my tank. I saw two larger ones a while back and never thought much of it, and haven’t seen them in a while so I assumed they died or something but now I have a billion tiny little bladder snails in my tank and I NEED to get rid of them! How can I get them out??? Help!

 

If you do not have inverts you like or plants any copper based snail killer will work.

 

Get yourself some assassin snails. Will take some time but my 6 in my 75 gallon cleared out a colony of near 100 in a month or so.

Blanch a vegetable (cucumber, lettuce, spinach, etc.) set it in your tank before you go to bed. Wake up and a bunch of snails will be on it eating. Take out vegetable, repeat until your liking.

Personally I would go with assassin snails because the vegetable thing doesn't get rid of the root problem. And in all reality, assassin snails don't address the broader root problem. Snails don't reproduce unless that have food to sustain them. Maybe stop feeding so much. In my 75 tank I feed every other day and the bladder snails slowly grew out of hand. But my limited feeding allowed the assassin snails to stay ahead of the bladder snails breeding, and my limited feeding doesn't allow the bladder snails to outpace the assassins assassinating.

 

My way siphon into a stocking you'll pick them up easy ,then return the water and repeat until they are at a number more controllable maybe by using a trap

 

Depends on the size tank, what all you have in it, and a few other things. Like my favorite fish are loaches, specifically clown loaches. But they get massive so I got some for my 29 gallon tank that was infested, they happily took care of it for me. But I plan to move them into a 75 gallon or 125g in the near future so they're not a good choice unless you plan a big tank!

Putting lettuce in the tank, turning off the light, and in the morning removing the lettuce will help a lot. I personally don't like snail killer chemicals because it can effect other fish as well plus then you have hundreds of tiny shells in your tank and likely will give you a fancy ammonia spike to match since you likely aren't going to get every single one out.

 

Agreed, if the tank is big enough I say use loaches

 

I'm in the same boat buddy. My tank is littered with bladder snails. Assassins work well, but can take a while they are a snail they're not the fastest thing in the world. If you have the room like everybody said loaches are going to be best. Also if you see any of the eggs in your tank fishing them out will help prevent hundreds more from hatching. You've got about 3-4 weeks from when they hatch to when they start laying eggs and it gets exponentially worse.

 

Depends on the size tank, what all you have in it, and a few other things. Like my favorite fish are loaches, specifically clown loaches. But they get massive so I got some for my 29 gallon tank that was infested, they happily took care of it for me. But I plan to move them into a 75 gallon or 125g in the near future so they're not a good choice unless you plan a big tank!

Putting lettuce in the tank, turning off the light, and in the morning removing the lettuce will help a lot. I personally don't like snail killer chemicals because it can effect other fish as well plus then you have hundreds of tiny shells in your tank and likely will give you a fancy ammonia spike to match since you likely aren't going to get every single one out.

It’s a 29 gal tank. The only fish in it are 6 corys and a betta but it’s heavily planted

 

If you do not have inverts you like or plants any copper based snail killer will work.

I have so many plants though :/

 

Can I ask how you got on with this and if you managed to get rid of them? About two weeks ago I discovered an infestation of bladder snails and I manually remove about four or five a day.

I is a heavily planted tank with a couple of assassins and four zebra nerite snails so don't want to have to treat the whole tank to kill them off if I can avoid it.

I was hoping the assassins would help control the bladder snail population but I have a section at the back of the tank for the filter, pump and heater and they seem to hide out the way in there!

 

The population of bladder snails is self-regulating according to the food supply. I had a large number of them in my 40 gallon also for a while, but now the algae has leveled out and I rarely see more than one or two at a time. They don't bother me.

 

Ah ok - that is really helpful to know, thanks. I had visions of the tank becoming overrun with them but pretty relaxed if they will level out.

 

Sorry, but the self regulating thing has not worked for me in the least.

Let's start with what I call the big tank, only a 55 gallon, but the biggest tank I have.

Over feeding is not an issue in the least. Thanks to a way to successful live bearer grow out tank, I am now over populated in the big tank. Any and all food is gone in a matter of seconds and my little "sharks" as I call them, are begging for more. The extra sinking food I put in while the "sharks" are busy with the flakes for the cory herd is also gone very quickly. Believe me, there is nothing left for snails.

And still I had those blasted bladder snails by the thousands.

But I have managed to get the population down to at least controllable numbers and this is how I did it. Mind you, it took me several months.

Every water change, since the tank is over populated that means at least once a week and often more depending on water test, I removed every removable decoration and rinsed the snails off. At first this was hundreds, you wouldn't believe how many can be under a rock, but the numbers did go down as time went on. I also crushed any I saw on the glass, my little "sharks" looked forward to this, I think this is where they learned to follow my hand around the tank, lol.

Now I'm finally down to just using traps. I use two of my own design which are small, only catch bladder snails and don't detract from the aquascaping. I'm down to 5 to 10 badder snails in each trap every night. I can live with those levels.

I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never get rid of them totally since I refuse to use chemical methods, and I have to give it to the buggers, they are survivors. I've come to the conclusion that when we are stupid enough to nuke our wonderful world, the only survivors will be rats, cockroaches and bladder snails.

 

I don't know then. I just know my population went from a dozen easily seen whenever I cared to count, down to 1 or 2.

 

Jetts, yea, I still don't know why I have such a problem when others don't. I know it's not over feeding. Maybe it's because I'm rural and on a well which has very hard water. Maybe it's the extra calcium my limestone filtered water provides that give the buggers a extra kick. Or maybe I have some weird super bladder snails, lol. I just know I have way too many of them.

The irony is that I actually love snails. I'm forever fussing over my nirites, ramshorns and Big Blue, my lone mystery snail. I'm even cycling a smaller tank to house my beloved ramshorns because I'm adding assassin snails to the shrimp tank to handle it's bladder snail infestation and don't want my ramshorns hurt, they are so cute. And then that tank will house the assassin snails once they do their job because I don't believe in disposable pets once their job is done, the assassins will always have a home with everything they need to be healthy and happy.

Got to laugh in that some people consider ramshorns a pest snail and they never give me a hairs bit of problem as far as population control, which gives the old self regulating thing merit. I never seem to have any more than what I want in both my tanks.