# Getting Rid of Snails



## punman (Oct 24, 2003)

Got a plant 6 months ago and two months ago I had snails. Removed the plant - still have snails.
Have tried sifting them out - short term solution.
They do no harm but it is a show tank in living room (90 gal.).
They are cone shaped, brownish and small but make the sand look like it is covered in poo.
My thought was to remove the sand and the fish. Discard the sand - and then what - a bleach solution in the tank for a couple of days?
I have a tank for the fish for a few days and I want to do this right the first time.


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## cevvin (May 2, 2008)

Whoa hold on before you do anything. Those are definetly MTS (malaysian trumpet snails). The are quite harmless, but thrive in overfed tanks. First fast your fish for a few days. Then after that decrease the amount of food you are giving your fish. It might take awhile but they will decrease. They are great sand sifters and they dont eat live plants. But if you really want to get rid of them (because even taking your tank apart sometimes wont solve the problem) Look into getting an assassin snail. Loaches dont do much as they have a trap door and cant suck them out of there shells.

But if you can control how much food in the in substrate you can control the population. Usually you will never see them as they come out at night. But if you see them during the day, you are feeding your fish WAY to much. Try that before you start bleaching the tank.


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## ry05coupe (Dec 30, 2008)

also before you use bleach, there are sever products out there to get rid of snails.
one that comes to mine is "had a snail", which *** heard works really well.
I dont usually like to use unnecessary chemicals on my aquariums, but its got to be better than bleach.


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## BenHugs (Jan 13, 2007)

You could get a chilotilapia rhoadasaii (spelling??) They are the Malawi snail eater. 
I put malaysian trumpet snail in my tank on purpose. I never see mine though........


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## punman (Oct 24, 2003)

Maybe I am overfeeding but I find that hard to believe. I have 24 adult tropheus who get three pinches of NLS in the morning and three pinches at night. Probably what they can eat in 20 seconds each time.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

punman said:


> Maybe I am overfeeding but I find that hard to believe. I have 24 adult tropheus who get three pinches of NLS in the morning and three pinches at night. Probably what they can eat in 20 seconds each time.


 your snails are just as happy to munch through fecal castings as they would any lost pellet. they are the best of scroungers, and if their population is increasing, then they have a sufficient food source from somewhere. burrowing snails can be an important part of sand maintenance, IMO.


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

I personally would not use "had a snail." I've heard that it can have very negative consequences.

I have two planted tanks with MTS. I'm not overly fond of them, but we've declared a bit of a truce.

I have cut back on feeding. Have removed them by hand to reduce the population when they are on plant leaves, etc. I also periodically lift up substrate with a small net and pick out the bigger ones. I have also heard, but have not done this: weight down a lettuce leaf after dark. The snails will go to it. then lift the leaf up in the morning and take them with it. Repeat as necessary.


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

Believe it or not, an explosion in the snail population is a sure sign of overfeeding. NLS is a very potent food. A crumb per fish per day will be enough for your tropheus. Cut down to one feeding a day, or just one pinch per feeding, and you will see the snail population decrease over time.

In addition, manually removing the snails is the best way to get rid of them. To make this a bit easier, put some slices of cucumber or zuccini in the tank overnight. The next day the veggies will be covered with snails and you can remove the slices together with all the snails that are clinging to them. I have to do this once in a while in my tropheus tank - speaking of it, I think I'll put a few slices in there as soon as I am finished with this post 

Frank


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## boredatwork (Sep 14, 2007)

I will refrain from my whole "Chemicals" talk.

Manual removal with the lettuce trap is probably easier than bleaching the tank.

However, for future notice, to alleviate headache this is why I dip new plants in a diluted bleach solution for about a minute, and then soak them in decholorinator. It kills snails, and more importantly snail eggs, and any other nasties that came along for the ride. And apparently it is somewhat counter intuitive so I always need to say that this method is perfectly safe.


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## punman (Oct 24, 2003)

So is there a problem with throwing out the sand and snails and cleaning tank with a bleach solution? I have done this with rocks and then rinsed and never lost a fish.


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## joker4466 (Oct 10, 2008)

i had bad snail problem and got a couple skunk botia and that took care of them.id find smashed or empty shells in the tank but not snails.


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## Alleycat (Dec 2, 2006)

I'd say throwing out the sand, washing the glass down with boiling or close to boiling water will kill the eggs of the dreaded MTS. Using bleach and rinsing well will work too. Just make sure it's rinsed well so there's no ...ah, you know what to do! 
I have them in my tanks too, and I know I overfeed occasionally. I have never watched my Snyo. Petricolas eat any, but I have dead snails all over the floor of their tank. 
I have also used the Cuke/ Zuke method and it works well to a degree...


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## Donfish (Dec 24, 2007)

Alleycat said:


> ...will kill the eggs of the dreaded MTS....


To avoid confusion the "dreaded" MTS is a livebearer.

I seed all my tanks with both pond snails and MTS, I consider them a part of the tank system. I found in a well balanced tank you hardly see them and they will self-regulate.


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