Hitchhiking snail gonna be trouble?

I just saw a small snail on an anacharis I bought today. The plant is already planted in a hard to reach spot. Am I going to have to pull that plant out and get rid of the snail? Is it going to cause me loads of trouble if I leave it? Help?

 

What's it look like? Can you get a picture?

Chances are it's a pond snail. They are common hitchhikers. They can reproduce by themselves so one can quickly become more. You can't get the snail out without uprooting the whole plant? Ugh, that's a pain, but I would definitely get it out of there soon unless you don't mind raising a pond snail colony. I started out with one I found in my filter that came in on a plant and I've picked out seven more since. I think I got them all, but you never can tell!

 

I thought I was snail free aside from my mts but I found a pond snail yesterday. It came in on either one of 2 top fin brand live plants petco sells anubias nana and anubias afzeriI or some horn wort or water lettuce from petco...

I rinsed them all in cold water too...

 

If it were me, I would snatch it out immediately.

However, they are a good indication if you are overfeeding your fish. You will know if there is population explosion of your pond snail.

 

Yup, probably a pond snail. Any time you buy live plants from places like petco/petsmart, you run the risk of getting some ( unless you buy the ones that are individual and marked, "Snail free" )

I throw mine into a jar I have on my fireplace mantle, it has live plant and water and just let them be. They feed off the algae and hopefully soon, I will take them to the lfs where they will probably feed to the puffers or goldfish.

 

yeah but I am also planning on breaking the tank down and moving the occupants to bigger living quarters either a 15 gallon long or a 35-45g tall.

 

If I happen to have an outbreak, would assassin snails kill them?

 

Yup

 

. Just pulled out a tiny tiny snail. Showed up plain as day on black sand. I guess I'll need to get some assassin snails. I know little about snails. I know the assassins obviously dine on other snails, but is that the only thing they eat? Can I rid the tank of snails by feeding very sparingly for a while? I don't know how this works. I know I don't want snails all over!

 

If there are no pest snails for them to eat, they will eat leftover fish food, shrimp pellets, whatever they can find.

My suggestion since you just notice a pond snail is just to pick them out whenever you see them and don't worry about getting an assassin snail at the moment. If you feed your fish accordingly then I don't foresee a possible snail population explosion.

 

If there are no pest snails for them to eat, they will eat leftover fish food, shrimp pellets, whatever they can find.

My suggestion since you just notice a pond snail is just to pick them out whenever you see them and don't worry about getting an assassin snail at the moment. If you feed your fish accordingly then I don't foresee a possible snail population explosion.

I think I will hold off on the assassin and stick to feeding the other fish accordingly and see what happens. I guess I'll find out if I over feed or not!

 

I got an assassin snail a week or two ago, and he is really cool. I love the shell he has. Sadly he never comes out during the day though so all he seems to do is produce waste ALL OVER MY TANK. There is no way it is poo, but it looks like poo. Perhaps snails just leave slime all over?

Just an FYI.