Pond Snail Takeover

Well I am probably going to win the award for the cruelest human in the history of the forum here, but murder is taking place as I am wriiting. I got up the other day to find several pond snails attached to Marty and he was going ape. That was when I noticed that the "cute little things" that I had thought were descendants of Pooh and Piglet, my Zebra Neritas were actually common Pond snails and they were laying eggs under the leaves of the plants and there would soon be a horde of them. I suppose that I was spoiled because the girls keep the snail population down in the bedroom tank, but Marty is picky and would not know what to do with a small snail. It was making him jump and twitch and carry on so I imagine it was hurting him. I could not get every snail out of the tank so I put Marty and the Otos (Dopey and Dingbat) into a makeshift quarantine tank along with Ivory the Mystery Snail for safekeeping for a few days. I still had some Bio-Spira and my EHEIM small filter and some fake plants and my new 5 gallon bucket that has a heater and airstone and some decorations and basically all the comforts of home even its own fluorescent light. Marty has been in it before when the q tank was busy and he needed to be seperated and he didn't mind a bit and this time seems to be the same especially since he has company.

I got some Had-A-Snail and dosed the tank and it did not work at the standard level of strength so I dosed it again the next day and the snails laughed at me and kept right on laying eggs. So this morning I really dosed them and they are finally dying off. I feel guilty as the dickens, but they cannot take over the tank and when they started to hurt or upset my Betta that did it. I am going to wait a few more days to make sure all the eggs have hatched and are taken care of and then I am going to do one large cleaning on the tank and plants and restart the tank with carbon in the filter (a lot of it) and run it for a day or so to make sure the medicine is gone before introducing my fish and snail back in with some more Bio-Spira since there will not have been fish in there for over a week.

If anyone has any more suggestions, let me know.

Rose
>

 

You could put a pieces of green bean in the tank and leave them overnight. In the morning, they'll be covered with snails. Then you could wrap them in a very damp paper towel, put them in a plastic ziploc bag, and ship them to me.

 

That's awful, Rose, I hope that you manage to get them all out.

 

I cleaned the tanks for the first time as it appears that the adults have passed on, but now I have to wait out the 2 weeks for making sure that all the eggs have hatched out and gotten killed as well and so I dosed the tanks again after a 50% water change. My plants are suffering and I am hoping not to have to replace any. I am tempted to remove almost all the leaves to save them some of the stress of staying alive. It is now in the hands of a power greater than me. I am tempted to go back to the fake plants if this doesn't come out well. Some of them are so beautiful and no snails involved but also no benefits of lowered nitrates.

Rose

 

Clean everything in your tank. Best way to get rid of them for sure is to drain all your water take out your gravel and put everything out in the sun for a couple hours to fry any snails or eggs left and put your filter media in a bucked of tank water so you don't have to recycle your tank unless it's in the bucket with your fish. But make sure you clean you filter too, every part because they will go in there. Good Luck getting rid of them. At least it's a small tank, your lucky.

 

if ur still having problems with the snail  eggs I hear that bamboo shrimp love them not to mention ur betta will have an all u can eat buffet once he gets back in the tank tho the pea diet will be in order

 

Thank you for the advice. I think they are all dying off as the stuff I am using is kicking in finally. I have Bio-wheel filters and so the media doesn't contain all the bacteria but I have Bio-Spira if the need arises. I also have 2 new Bio-wheels that came with some spare parts from Marineland. (the wheel itself) The bettas in the bedroom (the girls) eat the snails as fast as they hatch so I am not treating their tank but the boys wouldn't touch a snail for money!! I have had everything out and am just trying to give it a few more days to make good and sure that I do not have a relapse. The really sad thing is my plants are suffering and I do not want to have to get more plants, that is how this started in the first place.

Oh well......

Rose

 

You can bleach your plants before you put them in the tank, hasn't failed yet for me on killing the snails. 1:19 ratio, one bleach 19 water. Thirty seconds should do the trick, if you didn't know that already that is.

 

what if they are live plants kind of a bad idea isn't it?

 

Nope, lots of people dip their live plants. Just have to be careful.

 

I would think that perfectly healthy plants would start looking like mine

 

I dip all my live plants when I buy them to kill the snails and so far it has worked for me and yes it's for live plants. You just have to be careful because some plants are sensitive to bleach and will die.

 

I did bleach them before I put them back into the tank before I added the Had-a-Snail. I took all the dead leaves off today and changed the water in the first tank and added carbon to the filter. Marty is going home tomorrow. The snail eggs are gone and he has a brand new cave and a few fake (brand new) plants to play in until the real ones grow back again. He will never realize that things have changed that much except he will miss his bucket. The Mystery Snail will wait a day or so to go back home to make sure all the stuff is out of the water for good.

The tank has never looked cleaner. It took care of all the algae while it was at it.

Rose
;D

 

You could put a pieces of green bean in the tank and leave them overnight.  In the morning, they'll be covered with snails.  Then you could wrap them in a very damp paper towel, put them in a plastic ziploc bag, and ship them to me.

Too bad your puffers can't handle the MTS. I could send you a monthly supply! ;D

 

Well I woke up this morning to the same thing in the girls tank, only just getting started. I had planted some new Anubias in there a couple weeks ago and they evidently had a snail problem too. So they are all three now temporarily in the quarantine tank with their Mystery Snail Angel. It is a very tight squeeze and they do not care for it at all but it is only for a few days and hopefully we will not have fights and nipping. If that starts, I can always haul out the bucket.

Rose

 

O when I got anubias for my small tank I got snails too, though so far they haven't caused a problem and if all goes well then in a month or so I'll be able to ship some snails to boxermom. Sorry to hear that though.

 

This is such an old topic but you folks are so knowledgeable and I am suffering from my first snail outbreak.

This worries me for two reasons:

1) I just finished cycling my tank and I don't want the increased bio-load to mess things up.

2) I'm afraid I could have thousands of snails in my tank if I don't take action, now. It started with one snail. Then two. Now I found tons of little ones crawling *everywhere*.

I have 4 mollies in my tank and the only non-occupied tank I currently own is a 2.5 gallon breeder tank / quarantine tank.

Should I buy another 10 gallon tank and "start over"? I could cycle it and leave the fish in the current 10 gallon - and then move them into the new tank as the cycle nears its end. At that point I could treat the first tank for the snails and if all goes well turn it into my new breeder tank for my mollies.

I am not too keen on just putting all 4 mollies into a 2.5 gallon tank and dumping loads of Had-A-Snail into my 10g.

Any new advice?

 

That would be fine. Instead of using had-a-snail you can just let everything dry out and it wilil kill all snails. You can try putting lettuce in you tank at night and pulling it out in the morning, should have snails all over it.