barbiespoodle
- #1
I have a huge problem with bladder snails. I actually like snails. I adore my nerites and "The Big Guy" aka, my mystery snail. I have also been working at getting a nice ramshorn population going.
But these bladder snails are driving me nuts and I no more think I have them under control and I get a huge spike in their population.
So here is my next round in the war against the bladder snail, a war that I, so far, have been totally beaten.
Being a crafty type person, I always keep something I think I might have a need for. In this case it was a glass spice jar I thought I would use to root plants on my kitchen window. Looking at it my brain actually decided to work and I saw a snail trap.
First I took off the label. I needed to pry a corner off first with my utility knife. A film of glue was left, but I smeared it with vegetable oil, which dissolved it. I then cleaned off the vegetable oil with dish soap, gave a very though rinse, cut off the lid that closes the top, put air line tubing of various lengths in the holes, fill with water, add a algae wafer, and added it to the big tank.
And dang if it didn't work! You can see in the pic snails waiting on the outside to get in, snails coming in through the tubes and snails in the jar. All I had to do is unscrew the lid and rinse out the snails, rescrew the lid, rebait, and put back into the tank. I counted 29 snails in the jar and tubes. Best of all, the holes are big enough for bladder snails and nothing else. I'm making another for the other side of the tank but this time all I had was a plastic spice jar, that one I'll have to add some stones to weigh down.
But these bladder snails are driving me nuts and I no more think I have them under control and I get a huge spike in their population.
So here is my next round in the war against the bladder snail, a war that I, so far, have been totally beaten.
Being a crafty type person, I always keep something I think I might have a need for. In this case it was a glass spice jar I thought I would use to root plants on my kitchen window. Looking at it my brain actually decided to work and I saw a snail trap.
First I took off the label. I needed to pry a corner off first with my utility knife. A film of glue was left, but I smeared it with vegetable oil, which dissolved it. I then cleaned off the vegetable oil with dish soap, gave a very though rinse, cut off the lid that closes the top, put air line tubing of various lengths in the holes, fill with water, add a algae wafer, and added it to the big tank.
And dang if it didn't work! You can see in the pic snails waiting on the outside to get in, snails coming in through the tubes and snails in the jar. All I had to do is unscrew the lid and rinse out the snails, rescrew the lid, rebait, and put back into the tank. I counted 29 snails in the jar and tubes. Best of all, the holes are big enough for bladder snails and nothing else. I'm making another for the other side of the tank but this time all I had was a plastic spice jar, that one I'll have to add some stones to weigh down.
