I’ve Got To Kill Some Baby Snails :(

A hitchhiker snail living in my new second aquarium has gone and had hundreds of babies. She keeps laying more eggs (idk who she’s even mating with at this point), and they’re taking over the whole tank. I think I’m gonna need to drop one of my assassin snails in there to take care of them, but I don’t have the heart to kill all of those adorable little babies. Any encouragement?

 

See if your LFS will take them if they have puffers or a local fish club or an online site...

 

once you start killing them, you get used to it. I didn't want to kill mine either but now I do it without a second thought. I crush them, it's the fastest death so they don't suffer.

if you want you can try catching them and keep them in a small container or jar.

 

Squish them

 

I crush them against the glass and let the fish eat up the insides. My guppies and gouramies love them. I have heard a 3 spot gourami will actually suck the snails out their shells. I find a couple of assassin snails and a bit of care not to over feed tends to keep them in check.

 

I am so lucky to have read this. Last night I tossed in a tree branch stick that I found after a thunderstorm. It was from a Norwegian maple tree. So I thought to myself, better than spending 24 bucks on a piece of wood. I just saw a large baby snail crawling on the glass of my 5.5 uncycled tank and took it out, along with the stick. Maybe I should add something to treat the tank? I just added plants yesterday. It could have been in the plants, as I got them overnight.

 

Ugh, okay, thanks guys. I’ll drop a snail in once I get home.

 

A hitchhiker snail living in my new second aquarium has gone and had hundreds of babies. She keeps laying more eggs (idk who she’s even mating with at this point), and they’re taking over the whole tank. I think I’m gonna need to drop one of my assassin snails in there to take care of them, but I don’t have the heart to kill all of those adorable little babies. Any encouragement?

I have a jar of greenwater I deposit all my snails into it. They breed and live happy. Sometime I feed them to my fish. The fish love it and it's a great live food for them.

 

Ooh, that’s a good idea too.

 

I have had to snail hunt a bit too. I don't mind them but they are pond snails and the babies go right for the hornwort.
If I have the long forceps out to move things around I usually crunch at least 3.

 

She keeps laying more eggs (idk who she’s even mating with at this point)

Many snail species need only one specimen to reproduce. They have a dual male/female genitalia.

 

Don't do it! Give the population a month to balance out! Snails aren't bad and people are too quick to panic. If you want me to elaborate on the benefits of snails let me know. At this point, I feel I need to prepare a copy/paste response to these threads. I spend most of my time on fishlore advocating for snails it seems.

 

Don't do it! Give the population a month to balance out! Snails aren't bad and people are too quick to panic. If you want me to elaborate on the benefits of snails let me know. At this point, I feel I need to prepare a copy/paste response to these threads. I spend most of my time on fishlore advocating for snails it seems.

I would like to know. Especially how they balance out, if there are no predators in the tank. They reproduce so fast, and they’re everywhere, even in the filter. If I leave mine alone, there will be thousands of them in a few months.

 

Pest snails breed in relation to the amount of food they get. So if they don't have any food (other than micro pieces of algae) they won't breed. A couple of them aren't an issue and are actually good for the tank. I always had a problem with pest snails though. I tried not to overfeed my fish too. Idk.

But if you don't want them at all and don't want to "kill" them, there's a few ways to handle it.
1. Get neo shrimp. They'll out-compete snails for the excess food in the tank. They'll breed like crazy and eventually reach equilibrium based on the amount of food in the tank. The snails will live out their days on micro algae but won't breed.
2. Let them breed, and give them to anyone you know that owns a puffer. They'll die, but they're not going to waste... Anyone with a puffer can tell you that it's impossible to keep enough snails.
3. Don't overfeed and let it live out its days! This is honestly impossible though. I've tried and tried, but some food always gets away from the fish and the snails eat it and reproduce. After getting puffers, I treated every snail as a blessing! Lol.

 

Put a couple of assassin snails in there to keep the numbers in check. The assassins pretty much stay buried in your substrate if it is sand and only come out to eat. They are great at keeping your sand stirred so serve a double duty.

 

Put a couple of assassin snails in there to keep the numbers in check. The assassins pretty much stay buried in your substrate if it is sand and only come out to eat. They are great at keeping your sand stirred so serve a double duty.

Do you need two of them to reproduce, or just one ?

 

Do you need two of them to reproduce, or just one ?

It takes 2 assassins to get babies unless you get just one and it happens to be a female that has just been with a male. I sold some and they started laying eggs as soon as they went into their new home.

 

What ystrout said. They will die out as the food supply goes away. Massive population explosions happen at first, but the numbers will die back as they work through the available food. If they don't die back then there's usually a problem in the tank allowing them to overpopulate, such as overfeeding, too much algae, too much dead plant matter etc. But I love having them in my tanks, they keep my plant leaves clean, they clean up the bits of food the fish miss, keep my sand surface clean, and if a guppy dies that I can't find they'll usually eat it before I get an ammonia spike. Plus they're cute.

 

I was super antI crushing them and then one day I crushed a few cause my rank was over run, and now it's not as difficult l. I'll admit still a little sad but not the horrible scarring experience you expect it to be. Best of luck! Also if you have any snails that aren't pest, that you would like to keep alive you would have to remove them before introducing assassin snails.

 

I was super antI crushing them and then one day I crushed a few cause my rank was over run, and now it's not as difficult l. I'll admit still a little sad but not the horrible scarring experience you expect it to be. Best of luck!

Same here. It was difficult for me the first few times. When I got infested with them I just wanted them gone. I didn't think I was overfeeding my tank but may have been. I have since gained more respect for the job they do but at the time I really could see no benefit to having them in my tank. I now have a 2.5 gallon jar set up specially for them.

I had a gravel substrate and I guess some food fell through the cracks. I didn't have nearly as many corys back then either. Now the corys eat every drop of food that hits the bottom. I also switched to sand so food stays within easy reach of the corys. There is no food left to feed pest snails.

Also if you have any snails that aren't pest, that you would like to keep alive you would have to remove them before introducing assassin snails.

The assassins will eat all the smaller snails first but you are right. Once the smaller ones are gone the assassins will work together to take down larger snails.

 

If anyone ever wondered how an assassin snail works,

. Its...not graphic by human standards per say but does show some pretty gruesome snail on snail violence. LBVS

 

Loaches eat snails. Maybe get one or 2 for population control...?
Just my unworthy 2 cents..lol!