Who here hates pest snails

[Megabeth]

Hi im about to rant so be prepared . I absolutely HATE pest snails. I work so hard to keep them out of my tank but today I'm looking at one of my tanks and I see something strange... a pest snail! I look a little bit closer and there are hundreds of them! Maybe that's an overstatement... but you get where I'm coming from. I have no idea how they got in there. I bleach dip my plants, I quarantine my fish and I haven't even added anything new to this tank in MONTHS. There no getting rid of them now my tank has so many but this helped a little. Feel free to share what you think of these little guys lol.

 

[AggressiveAquatics]

I kinda like them lol. I’m not about to get mad at some little snails for just existing

 

[Megabeth]

I heard that they are good at cleaning up algae but I tried so hard to keep them out but tey still got in somehow ._.

 

[LeviS]

I actually love snails, I got ramshorns today, I got some Malaysian trumpet snails 2-3 weeks ago. If you have MTS a bleach dip will not likely get them all or it may not kill any of them. MTS are a very tough snail, there's stories/journals out there online where a guy soaked his tank with bleach and still had the MTS.

 

[Megabeth]

I think they are pond or bladder snails

 

[BettasAreSuperior]

Hi im about to rant so be prepared . I absolutely HATE pest snails. I work so hard to keep them out of my tank but today I'm looking at one of my tanks and I see something strange... a pest snail! I look a little bit closer and there are hundreds of them! Maybe that's an overstatement... but you get where I'm coming from. I have no idea how they got in there. I bleach dip my plants, I quarantine my fish and I haven't even added anything new to this tank in MONTHS. There no getting rid of them now my tank has so many but this helped a little. Feel free to share what you think of these little guys lol.

OH MY GOD. I HATE SNAILS.
When somebody asks me if I like snails:

I have never encountered a snail, and trust me, it doesn't want to encounter me. *Cracks Knuckles*

 

[AquaBaby]

I'm totally with you on pest snails. Had a bad experience. I don't even like to think about it. *shudders* nothing goes straight in my tanks anymore. QT. Yup, plants too. And I didn't even get them from plants!

On the other hand, I love my nerites, spikes, j trapdoors, and triangles.

But those fast reproducing little boogers?! NOPE

 

[Megabeth]

I'm totally with you on pest snails. Had a bad experience. I don't even like to think about it. *shudders* nothing goes straight in my tanks anymore. QT. Yup, plants too. And I didn't even get them from plants!

On the other hand, I love my nerites, spikes, j trapdoors, and triangles.

But those fast reproducing little boogers?! NOPE

Exactly i have no idea how I got snails. I haven't added anything to mu tanks in 3 weeks and they just appeared out of nowhere

 

[AquaBaby]

That has to be so frustrating!

What did you add 3 wks ago?

 

[Kathylee]

Hi im about to rant so be prepared . I absolutely HATE pest snails. I work so hard to keep them out of my tank but today I'm looking at one of my tanks and I see something strange... a pest snail! I look a little bit closer and there are hundreds of them! Maybe that's an overstatement... but you get where I'm coming from. I have no idea how they got in there. I bleach dip my plants, I quarantine my fish and I haven't even added anything new to this tank in MONTHS. There no getting rid of them now my tank has so many but this helped a little. Feel free to share what you think of these little guys lol.

Lol.... oh this post made me laugh! I have what I think are mini-Ramshorn snails in a 10 gallon molly nursery. They appeared after adding a Amazon Sword* Plant from my LFS. Small, red, pinkish red & Rounded shells, that sit on the side, instead of vertically.The fry get fed 2x daily so I think that's why they appeared, it took 3 months before I found them-maybe even longer & I only found 2. 3 more months later & Now there is 2-4 adults & maybe a few tiny ones, they are hard to spot! But I enjoy them, they are a cool color & help clean up a bit.
BUT I found some UGLY brown snails that came with plants I ordered online in my main tank, from 2 Water Sprites* I have yet to identify because they are small, brown & cone shaped, I just smush them on sight & let the bigger fish snack on them.
I guess everyone is a bit different, depends on our tanks & tank needs, & our personal tolerance for the little buggars

 

[AcornTheBetta]

I hate pest snails, but love my nerite snail.

 

[Willj626]

I love snails!!! Except bladder snails (the only ones Im not thrilled about finding) so I feel for you OP. Don't lose hope though, with patience and persistence you can get your tank snail free! Just really focus on manual removal, put something like cucumber in there and wait till it dark when they come out and start removing them and pull the (hopefully) snail covered cucumber out.
Really hopes this helps! We all want our tanks to be how we want them.

 

[Megabeth]

That has to be so frustrating!

What did you add 3 wks ago?

Bamboo but it went through a long bleach dip

I love snails!!! Except bladder snails (the only ones Im not thrilled about finding) so I feel for you OP. Don't lose hope though, with patience and persistence you can get your tank snail free! Just really focus on manual removal, put something like cucumber in there and wait till it dark when they come out and start removing them and pull the (hopefully) snail covered cucumber out.
Really hopes this helps! We all want our tanks to be how we want them.

Of course I have bladder snails but I might let them hand around for a couple of days to help with algae problem lol

 

[Sauceboat]

Not a fan of pest snails aside from Ramshorns which I love because of how they look and the fact that they eat hair algae. It seems there’s never enough of them. Also there’s the bonus of the fact that a singular snail doesn’t reproduce so if you don’t want a huge population, its more manageable.

 

[AquaBaby]

Bamboo but it went through a long bleach dip

One would think they couldn't make it through that! So, before that?

I really do think it's worse having no idea how they came in!

The first fish I purchased... When i got home from the store, I noticed there was a little bit of something in the bag with the guppies I'd chosen. I looked hard at it. A bit of gravel? A sliver of wood? Nope! It was a cute little snail!! (Now, this was back before I had found Fishlore.) I was so excited to get a free snail! I had no idea it was a Malaysian trumpet snail. Or what that might mean. And, it was going into a tank that I had just moved some crayfish out of. They're messy eaters, coupled with me being new to aquariums.... That little snail was going into a gravel substrate just full of all the required food to turn into ten million snails!! Okay, huge exaggeration, but that's what it seemed like! Oh, the HORROR! Okay, now I'm being dramatic.

All that to say, I feel you're pain! But if we can figure out where they may have come from, it can help from it happening, again.

 

[Megabeth]

I added a few more plants with bamboo but I didnt dip them for nearly as long because they seemed more fragile so I think they came from that

 

[YellowGuppy]

I've made over a hundred bucks in the last year selling "pest" snails, so I guess you could say I don't mind them.

 

[AquaBaby]

I added a few more plants with bamboo but I didnt dip them for nearly as long because they seemed more fragile so I think they came from that

Very well could've!

Assuming you dont want to "bomb" the tank, you can do manual removal coupled with an assassin snail. I say that singular. One won't be enough to remove an infestation, but with manual removal at the same time, might work pretty well. I have the assassin snail I use in my plant QT in my 10 gallon right now with (full grown) horned nerites. It doesn't bother them in the least. I've read where people have experienced having assassins gang up on larger snails, that's why I said just one. Now, if you're trying to raise mysteries... don't put an assassin in there. Or, if you want to sell them, as mentioned, definitely don't get an assassin!!

 

[aquachris]

I love pest snails! In fact I'm a tad nervous, my snail breeder tank is starting to look low...

 

[Bettybrown922]

I love my pest snails! I just recently discovered a few in my baby mystery snail tank that are 99% black with a spot of gold on them, they're beautiful. I just moved 4 of my mystery snails to my new 20 gallon and purposely moved every pest snail I could find, too. Plus, I hope to own a pea puffer at some point and figure if the pest snails get out of control, I'll have a snail source for the offer's diet.

 

[Flyfisha]

The question was.
Who here hates pest snails?
My rant.
There are many different kinds of fish keepers.
Some battle nature and some work with it.
My feeling is nature is stronger than me and better at what I try to do.
I have no Scientific proof to the theory that snails poop and slime contains something that is needed in the stomach of young fry to help digest food. I have no scientific proof that young shrimp need anything that is in snails poop or slime. Or that snails to any good at all. I personally don’t need proof to anything and feel I can just relax and let nature help.
If I have lots of snails in one particular tank it is because i have let the tank get to a place that snails are exploiting.
All my tanks have a few snails. Only those that are being power feed multiple times each day have an explosion of life.

I continue to remove a few snails each day that wonder up to the top 3 inches of a tank were my fingers can reach easily.

live is to short to hate.

 

[Cup1]

I actually love pest snails and love seeing them in my 55 gallon because they make a great little snack for my GSP.

 

[Donovan Jones]

Lol.... oh this post made me laugh! I have what I think are mini-Ramshorn snails in a 10 gallon molly nursery. They appeared after adding a Amazon Sword* Plant from my LFS. Small, red, pinkish red & Rounded shells, that sit on the side, instead of vertically.The fry get fed 2x daily so I think that's why they appeared, it took 3 months before I found them-maybe even longer & I only found 2. 3 more months later & Now there is 2-4 adults & maybe a few tiny ones, they are hard to spot! But I enjoy them, they are a cool color & help clean up a bit.
BUT I found some UGLY brown snails that came with plants I ordered online in my main tank, from 2 Water Sprites* I have yet to identify because they are small, brown & cone shaped, I just smush them on sight & let the bigger fish snack on them.
I guess everyone is a bit different, depends on our tanks & tank needs, & our personal tolerance for the little buggars

Do u have a stable colony of the tiny ones?

 

[John58ford]

I love the ramshorns, don't care for *most* bladder snails. I had one variety of pond snail that "snapped" it's shell to swim faster and it was mesmerizing but the ramshorns out competed them.

I have to agree with:

The question was.
Who here hates pest snails?
My rant.
There are many different kinds of fish keepers.
Some battle nature and some work with it.
My feeling is nature is stronger than me and better at what I try to do.
I have no Scientific proof to the theory that snails poop and slime contains something that is needed in the stomach of young fry to help digest food. I have no scientific proof that young shrimp need anything that is in snails poop or slime. Or that snails to any good at all. I personally don’t need proof to anything and feel I can just relax and let nature help.
If I have lots of snails in one particular tank it is because i have let the tank get to a place that snails are exploiting.
All my tanks have a few snails. Only those that are being power feed multiple times each day have an explosion of life.

I continue to remove a few snails each day that wonder up to the top 3 inches of a tank were my fingers can reach easily.

live is to short to hate.

In my extremely finely controlled ~5 gallon fry sexing/grow out tanks I only ever have a couple ramshorns that make it to maturity. I have never once had to put my hand in these tanks to clean them, and I credit that 100% to the snails. In my 29 size tanks I could probably estimate 100 or so ramshorns(from babies that will likely starve up to adult), but all I ever do to clean in there is occasionally mag scraper if there is spot algae from the lighting I run. I don't have any build up of algae on plants or hardscapes, and I don't have to put my hand in there, nature does it.

I do understand the hate though, it's not convenient to have a dozen snails marching the glass right when a friend is trying to check out the tanks. It is another cool part of nature though, and I get as many "wow, cool snails/ecosystem" comments as I do about my planting, stocking etc. I've had family visitors literally sit in front of the tanks for hours watching for baby snails.

 

[Skrabbitskrabbit]

I’m weird because I hate hate hate all the tiny baby pest snails but I let a few get bigger (pea size or larger) and those don’t really bug me. But obviously the bigger ones created the baby ones so I can only hope to somehow keep the population in check.

 

[Dippiedee]

When the dust settles post apocalypse, pest snails will be all that remains getting rid of them is impossible

 

[mimo91088]

Embrace the snail!

 

[Kathylee]

Do u have a stable colony of the tiny ones?

Not yet, I think I accidentally killed a couple because the last time I did a gravel vacuum I was moving the sand around, and I found two white snail shells and they were pretty big, so I don't know if I hit them on accident or maybe buried them. Right now I have a couple of adults and a few babies. They don't seem to be reproducing heavily. It's a Molly fry tank some fry that are left are reaching 3 months old so they might have picked the snails off. I know the adult mollies will eat them, I've seen it happen lol

 

[CHJ]

I salted most of my tanks with bladder snails. I also have a snail pail AKA 55gal garbage can.

 

[babykitten]

Hi im about to rant so be prepared . I absolutely HATE pest snails. I work so hard to keep them out of my tank but today I'm looking at one of my tanks and I see something strange... a pest snail! I look a little bit closer and there are hundreds of them! Maybe that's an overstatement... but you get where I'm coming from. I have no idea how they got in there. I bleach dip my plants, I quarantine my fish and I haven't even added anything new to this tank in MONTHS. There no getting rid of them now my tank has so many but this helped a little. Feel free to share what you think of these little guys lol.

I've noticed some in both my display tanks. I just leave them and don't feed them. I notice one or two but that's it. You will have only how many can find food. If there is very little food, there will be very little snails.
I used to hate them, but now I'm indifferent. It seems they are unavoidable if you are buying plants. My overall opinion of them is that while I would never knowingly put them in my tank, I don't mind them living in there as long as there is no huge population and they aren't killing my plants.

 

[Mustangjenni]

I adore my mystery snail (Miss Spiral)! But I can’t stand those pest snails. I got some in my 36 gallon, and my adoration for my Mystery snail grew by leaps and bounds when I realized “she” loves to snack on the little buggers. I’ve removed about 50 myself as well. I go for days without seeing any and suddenly there they are again! Getting a nice shell collection for my daughter though.