Preventing Bladder Snail Infestation

Recently I bought some new plants that appeared to have bladder snail eggs in them. I say this because some days later one was crawling on the glass. I moved it over to a small tank and later moved another I found in the main tank. The smaller tank suddenly had 4 of them, so I assume 2 more crawled out of the plants that I put in the smaller tank (which was the same batch).

Now, I like these little guys, but I don't want them multiplying all over the big tank. I think I'm in the clear right now and the main tank is bladder snail free. However, I wanted to move a decoration from the small tank to the big tank and when I removed it from the small tank I noticed a blob of eggs on the inside of said decoration. I left it out of the water for a few days and the blob seems to have disappeared. There isn't even residue on the bottom of the (empty) bucket I put it in. Did the eggs just disintegrate into mostly water?

My question about all this is: Are all the eggs gone from being out of the water for several days and, if not, what do I do to clean off any remaining eggs. I can't see inside all the nooks and crannies, so manual removal is tough. Maybe wash the decoration in something? I don't want to wash it in anything harmful to the tank I'm putting it in.

Anyway, while typing this I feel like I'm overthinking it...

 

I would dip the decoration in bleach to kill any snails that survived. Those things are tough to kill. You need to check your plants too. The egg sacks can be hiding on the underside of the leaves and will be hard to see.

If you are seeing new egg sacks already, you need to be aggressive to get rid of them. It doesn’t take long to get infested.

 

The only way you are going to get a snail population boom is if there is something in your tank that needs cleaning up. If that's the case, you need the snails to do the job. In any case, snails are your friends. And they won't eat your healthy plants.

 

You can usually manually remove egg sacks. If you find that the adult population is too high, add in a veggie (zucchinI slice, spinach, or green bean work well) and remove it hours later with snails on it.

 

I put in a piece of blanched veggie once every two days. If no bladder snails are coming out to eat that, I can assume there are none? My nerites are all over it!

 

They are likely feeding on that, though it seems not when you are watching.

What kind of nerites do you have? I could never get mine to eat veggies.

 

They are likely feeding on that, though it seems not when you are watching.

What kind of nerites do you have? I could never get mine to eat veggies.

I have these, gorging on cucumber. There are 5 "zebra" and 4 "red spotted" or "onion", though not all in the picture.

 

Just don't overfeed and make sure there are not rotting plants. Traps may also work, but you are basically feeding the snails while the food is in the tank.