# malasian trumpet snails appeared in tank



## JTT84 (Feb 9, 2013)

I have an African cichlid aquarium that I've had for a couple of years now. Just today I noticed trumpet snails in the aquarium, that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere! I looked up to see how they could have appeared and the only thing I can find is that they can hitchhike with live plants. Well, I don't have any live plants and I've had the same artificial plants since I've had the aquarium and fish. Nothing new has been added to the tank. So my question is, how could this have happened? has this happened to anyone? the only thing I can think of is there might be a possibility that there could have been some snail eggs in the fish food, but even that seems too weird. The fish food is dry it's new life spectrum fish formula


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## Cichlidman14 (Jul 17, 2013)

Clown loaches are a good way to get rid of them, an alternative would be indian puffers who eat snails, but their relatively small, can get killed by your mbuna, and need live food.


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## smitty814 (Sep 27, 2012)

Did you use filter media from another tank? Substrate from another tank?


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## JTT84 (Feb 9, 2013)

smitty-I have not added anything new to the tank, no substrate or filter media. Very weird. 
cichlidman- I was thinking of something like that since my mbunas aren't interested in the snails, but clown loaches require a much lower ph. My Mbunas have been doing really well at 8.2


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## smitty814 (Sep 27, 2012)

MTS don't lay eggs so they had to come in on something. New fish? Trumpet snails are an interesting addition to any tank. They dig so that stirs up the substrate. Too many? Just syphon them up.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

The Trumpet snails usually come from the gravel. They don't lay eggs, they are livebearing. They can be there for years without being seen, then suddenly there are a bunch showing up when the population reaches saturation. What kind of substrate do you have? Was it new when you put it in the tank?

IME, Clown Loaches aren't really good at dealing with this type of snail, the small ones have too small an opening on the shell for the loaches to get into. At best, they control the population by eating the larger individuals. There are other snail eating fish, but most do so by crushing the shell, which is extremely hard on this type of snail. Only species of fish that I've actually seen wipe out these snails was _Anomalochromis thomasi_, but they would not do that well with your Mbuna, either. I'm sure there are some sort of snail eaters from Malawi, just don't know enough about those fish to point one out.


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## JTT84 (Feb 9, 2013)

No new fish, I still have the same ones. The sand that I bought was silica sand, new in bags from leslie's pool supply store. I doubt they would have trumpet snails in their sand hehe. I guess one must have come with the fish when I first put them in, there's nothing else I can think of. Thanks everyone for your help


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## Tomagorn (Apr 5, 2013)

I would suggest assassin snails. Nice looking, not a threat to explode, very effective against MTS, won't get eaten by Mbuna, will eat detritus when MTS are gone. If you don't want any snails, there are always snail traps.


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## JTT84 (Feb 9, 2013)

Sounds like a good plan, thanks


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## mok3t (Nov 28, 2008)

I would add a botia species in this case. Either almorhae or striata. Yoyos or zebras


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