# SNAILS!



## the_fishguy (Oct 20, 2007)

well, this issue popped up almost overnight. about a day after my bristle nose Pleco died, I ended with snails every where! there little tiny ones. I assume he was snacking on them, even if unintentionally during his few year stay in the tank. I tried salt, and it helped a little. I tried a trap and that didn't work at all (I tried it with both fish food and lettuce). Loaches are out of the question, as I have only two other fish int there right now. an Johanni, and an Auratus both male, with a line drawn right down the middle of the tank, and I don't have anywhere else to put them. they wouldn't last a day.

So, does anyone have any ideas for getting rid of the snails?

P.S. - all the water parameters check out.


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## cevvin (May 2, 2008)

Which snails. do they look like a long spiral? If so those are MTS (malaysian trumpet snails). Their population is controlled by food. Back off on the food you are feeding your fish and you shouldn't have a problem.


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

How about getting another bristle nose pleco?


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## the_fishguy (Oct 20, 2007)

kinda spirally. but they are extremely small, so it's hard to tell.
I now feed the fish every other day, and they've started snacking on the snails, but it's no where near fast enough, I thinking of maybe going to every third day until I see a dent in the population.



Lively said:


> How about getting another bristle nose Pleco?


the reasons why i don't wan t to get another bristle nose are these:
1. I want to turn the tank into an Oscar tank (obviously just one Oscar, and I would have to upgrade the tank when the time came to a 75 gallon, I just don't have the room now, but we're getting ready to move any way) eventually. I have an empty thirty gallon I can put one of them into, but not both. and they are both kinda old (coming up on 4 years now I believe).
2.I'm not sure that even if I got the Pleco that the two in the tank wouldn't tear him to pieces. the barely tolerated the first one, and I think that was because he was in their before either of them. He had survived a filter failure while I was on a vacation. he was the only survivor.

does anyone else have any home remedies for snails. I'd rather not use chemicals, as they tend to cause water parameter spikes.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2009)

How about an extremely aggressive loach? Skunk Loaches for example... They're a whole LOT more aggressive than clown loaches and should be able to withstand the mbuna...


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## cevvin (May 2, 2008)

If its MTS the loaches wont do any good, as they have a trap door. But if they are not, might give it a try.

It might take a while for the MTS to die out, but the decrease in feeding will help alot.


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

you can also hand pluck the snails that you see - it will help a bit.


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## the_fishguy (Oct 20, 2007)

cevvin said:


> If its MTS the loaches wont do any good, as they have a trap door. But if they are not, might give it a try.
> 
> It might take a while for the MTS to die out, but the decrease in feeding will help alot.


what do you mean a "trap door"? do they just pull inside their shells, closing a "door"?

I am also now feed the Cichlids once every third day.
so, apparently there is non-chemical solution other than some loaches or plucking each snail...
wish there was another way...

I'll look for a bigger snail, and take a nice pic, see if you guys can give me a definite identification.


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## gbleeker (Jul 31, 2007)

Get a piece of zucchini and let it sit in the tank and all the snails will gather on it. Remove and throw away. Feed sparingly.


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## BIG BWALZ (Feb 28, 2008)

I also have what I believe is the MTS problem, and I am sick of them. I put 6 in my 55g mbuna tank probably about 8 months ago(and mine don't appear to eat em, not even the yellow labs)and now I have taken out i dunno 6 or 700 by hand and have several hundred left? I tried the lettuce and zucchini on the bottom thing and that didn't work very well. I don't think I overfeed, it's all gone in a minute or two, I feed once a day and fast one day a week. They seem to be breeding at an incredible rate.

A friend of mine has several tanks and has one with the same snail problem I have. He got a skunk loach and it hasn't seemed to help. I got so sick them I tried the chemical solution as well a week ago. I got the stuff called "Had A Snail", copper phenelyhydrate or something along those lines from the LFS. Treated tank twice per directions, actually overdosed the stuff a little bit and I still have the **** things a week later?

So should I just squirt the whole bottle in or what? I don't want to harm my fish obviously, I already didn't like having to pull the carbon and put in chemicals, I wish it would have worked the first two times. Do I need to break down the tank, I really don't want to?

Anybody ever use this stuff or have any advice? I have done a search here in all the forums and done some research on my own but I guess I am stumped.

Thanks!!


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## Curator (Feb 18, 2009)

If they are a type of "trap door" snail, the copper treatments dont seem to affect them because they can close their trap door and live for months like that (I even read I think on this or another forum somewhere that one guy dried out his gravel, put it in a bucket for 5 years, started a tank with the same gravel, and the snails came back...) *sings* ...and the snails came back the very next day... O.O


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## cevvin (May 2, 2008)

Look into getting an assassin snail. They love to eat MTS and they reproduce at a MUCH slower rate.


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

I had a suggestion but only now have had a chance to research it. I believe the only way you will completely get rid of the snails is to relocate the fish and bleach the tank - substrate and all.

Had a similar issue with a salt tank, only it was bristleworms - I had to kill my live rock to get rid of them but they were so bad they actually killed and ate a 6 lined wrasse while it was sleeping. I had bought the dang thing to eat them. Prior to killing the (expensive and fully cured 3 year old live rock) I tried everything - running fresh water through the system I pulled so many out that I stopped counting at 300 worms. And, I did that twice.

I understand what I am suggesting will destroy the cycle and kill off all the good bacteria - trust me it killed me to destroy that rock - but if you can't live with the snails, it is the only sure fire solution.


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## BIG BWALZ (Feb 28, 2008)

Thanks for your input guys I appreciate it. I have checked out the assassin snails and they seem pretty neat cevvin thanks! I think I will try to locate them and give em a shot and see what happens. From what I read they may solve my problem, and they look neat also. They seem to breed very slow and I think if they get out of control after they eat the MTS I can l kill them with the copper treatment. I will update the post with the status for everybody, for what it's worth.

If not, then I am afraid I may have to bleach the substrate like you suggested Lively. If I have to I will probably throw it out and just get more but I really don't want to. I can't imagine bleaching live rock in a saltwater tank...OUCH! I think you may be right though, but I hope not for my sake haha.

Ill update either way and tell you guys how it goes soon hopefully.

Thanks Again!!


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## Curator (Feb 18, 2009)

If they are MTS then the assassin snails should take care of them given enough time... But me, I love MTS... but maybe im just weird,lol...


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## Jerry Connors (Jan 20, 2005)

Copper treatments and delouse don't work. I tried them both. I am now trying the clown loaches. They have plenty of places to hide in the tank and seem to be surviving the other cichlids. I will also try to cut back on the food.


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

From what I've read, cutting back food doesn't significantly help get rid of this type of snail. They don't require much food and they will also eat the algae in the tank.


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## BIG BWALZ (Feb 28, 2008)

One more thing guys, How many Assassin snails should I pick up? I value the info I get here more than the LFS so I am very interested to hear your opinion. Not to mention this is where I found out about them, the store gave us skunk loaches and copper treatments. I have a 55 gal like I said above, stocked with 1 male red top zebra, 6 ice blue zebras and about 10 yellow labs and I dunno about 1k snails. I know weird mix but I am hoping to upgrade to a 125 or larger and do maybe an all male mixed malawi setup. This was my intro tank I've had it for a little over a year now, and my list used to be far worse. I was thinking maybe 4-6 snails?

Another thing regarding the little guys I saw yesterday after the 10 hour power outage at my house came back on, was a dust looking substance pretty much covering a little less than 2 square feet of my glass. At first I thought it was debris due to my filters being off all day, but the longer I looked at it I found out different. It was baby snails, probably just born that day because the lights were off and the fish and snails had their time clocks messed up and thought day was night. It pretty much looked like fine sawdust, and there were at least 500 newborns, no shell or anything, little slugs. Thought that was interesting, and a little scary I'm afraid the little cockroaches are gonna take over my whole house haha!

So ya the parents need to go, the only way I can see them going anywhere is a predator over a fair amount of time? That's when I began to wonder how many assassin snails, do I need 20 of those now haha?

Thanks again for all the help guys, I hope everybody is doing well!!


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## cevvin (May 2, 2008)

MTS come out of the substrate at night, if you have a SERIOUS problem I would get like 10 snails. And help them out by plucking as many as you can out of the tank. Sift your substrate to get the bigger ones. And the loaches wont work. Loaches eat snails by sucking the snail out of their shells, and MTS have a trap door which disables this ability.


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

Hate to tell you this - don't need two snail - just one. They have both male and female sex organs (I've forgotten the correct term for this way of reproduction).


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## Jerry Connors (Jan 20, 2005)

Any idea where to get assassin snails?


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## BIG BWALZ (Feb 28, 2008)

Thanks Lively, I know that much already though haha! I believe the correct scientific term for them is"asexual"?


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## Fishguy28 (Feb 5, 2007)

Jerry Connors said:


> Any idea where to get assassin snails?


Aquabid


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## Lively (Jan 13, 2009)

Huh, was trying to find out and came across this info - "MTS (trumpet snails) are parthenogenetic, meaning they are all females that reproduce without mating," from http://badmanstropicalfish.com/discus/messages/29503/54839.html?1142029614

Having both sets of sex organs is a hermaphrodite. Asexual means having offspring with no sex... I'm not going to say another word... but I'm seriously having a hard time not making an off color joke here!

LOL!


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## BIG BWALZ (Feb 28, 2008)

Thanks lively, very informative lol!! And kinda funny too, maybe I will write a cartoon or something haha!! I better stop now also before I get carried away!! Have a nice weekend everybody and thanks again!!


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## Curator (Feb 18, 2009)

Asexual means that they can successfully breed without a partner, Hermaphrodite just means they have both sex organs, but they would still need a partner to breed (and many hermaphrodites in nature cant breed usually, or when they can their offspring is usually rather inferior, and quite often all hermaphroditic as well...in some cases, like with guppy herms, they can get themselves pregnant, but such pregnancies , in my experience, end with still births...) 
^_^ although your description was much funnier Lively,lol..


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## morningsky (Apr 22, 2008)

I just found snails last night in my ten gallon that I use for fry. The wierd thing is I have not purchased any fish for this aquarium in over a year. I had some cory cats and assorted tetras in the aquarium that I have been raising my fry with.

Yesterday I removed all of the fish except the cory cats and when I went to bed there white pinhead shaped (eggs? I thought the cory cat had laid eggs, they were stuck to all of the side of the ten gallon)

So I went to take a closer look and turned on the lights and near the (eggs god I hope they are cory cat eggs) were several snails.
UGGG!
I guess they must have been there all this time and maybe the other fish were eating them. I am so baffled. Now I am worrying that I may have had some snail passengers transported to my 125.


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