# Ready to tackle the snail problem HEAD ON!!



## Rowerzysta (Jul 29, 2008)

ok...so i've devided to go ahead and tackle my small snail infestation using the TEAR DOWN - CLEAN - REBUILD method. Most people say this is the only way that can give 100% results in getting rid of snails, other than using harmfull chemicals that would kill plants and damage some fish too.

My plan is to:
1. Remove the fish, and put them into temporary glass containers such as large salad bowls or brita water filter pitcher(since i dont have a second aquarium)
2. Do the same thing with my plants.
3. Clean the aquarium, filter, hoses (with water and scrubing only)
4. Bake the gravel and large rocks.
5. Boil any drift wood.
6. Give the plants a bleach bath to get rid of snail eggs and other parasites.
7. Reassemble gravel, plants, refill the tank, add PRIME to declorify water and let filter for a few hours.
8. Reintroduce fish.
9. Be happy and snail free.

So now, here are some questions i have:
- will boiling the gravel (50% plain gravel 50% Fluorite) boil away the nutritional values of Fluorite?
- will the bleach solution remove snail eggs from plants? If not what would?
- will this whole process destroy my biological filtration? (of course i wont wash the ceramic media, but 100% of the water will be changed)


I would appreciate some comments and suggestions from you guys, especially if anyone has done this and if it was succesful.
Thanks a lot
Slawek


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## Tex Gal (Mar 28, 2008)

Can't you just get a clown loach or something. They will eat all the snails. Why are you being overrun? Are you feeding too much? Do you have rotting plants? If you remove their food source they will die. Your scavengers will eat their dead bodies.

Yes what you are planning will destory your bio filtration. You will have to recycle your tank. You will have to be very careful with your fish. It's quite a drastic move.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

What snails do you have?

Do the lettuce leaf trick and go for manual removal, and get assassin snails.

Snails will come in one way or another. You'll never be able to have a snail-free planted aquarium. It's probably best to learn how to manage them.


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## h2osanity (Sep 19, 2008)

I have tried everything including the tear down and start again solution and barring throwing everything out, it doesn't work. I baked (not boiled) the substrate...boiling might leach out the substraty goodness but baking won't.
I vinegared the tank, bleached the plants and soaked the filter. Still got snails back in within 2 weeks with no addition to plants or fish. 

You can try a few other solutions...get a loach or two. Botia Striata is a nice smallish loach that will help control your snails. Assassin snails (Anentome Helena) are also supposed to work well (not tried them myself). Of course you will lose any shrimp that you have too with a loach.

Metro is supposed to kill them off (as it will shrimp as well) and won't harm your fish. Jungle Buddies Parasite Clear is supposed to be an adequate snail exterminator but it hasn't worked very well for me either.


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## Rowerzysta (Jul 29, 2008)

the clown loaches i have dont seem to have a taste in snails, i tried the lettuce leaf trick and the result was that i captured 3 or 4 over 24hours while 20-30 sit on the side walls of the aquarium each night.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

What snails do you have? With ramshorn or common pond snails, I'll catch maybe 50-60 a night with a big lettuce leaf. The trick is to put it in late and night and remove the leaf before it gets too bright in the day. Keep the lights off and pull the leaf up quickly.


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## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

Rowerzysta said:


> the clown loaches i have dont seem to have a taste in snails,


Try crushing a couple. IME once loaches get the taste, they won't stop hunting them.


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## Rowerzysta (Jul 29, 2008)

I have the common pond snail and the one that looks like a flat ramshorn. I'm fairly set on at least trying the tear down method.

How long should i soak the plants in the bleach solution?


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## h2osanity (Sep 19, 2008)

I can catch 30-40 a day with algae wafers and can still pull out the same the next day.


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## oblongshrimp (Jul 26, 2006)

Check out potassium permanganate. People use it to dip their plants in to kill snails before adding them to their tank. Bleach may work but will likely kill your plants before killing the snails. I agree with everyone else though that you need a longer term solution as they will just come back. Additionally if you kill them you will have all their rotting bodies in your tank and your plants will be damaged from the bleach and you will have killed a large portion of your biological filter. This could lead to some dangerous ammonia levels.


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## eyebeatbadgers (Aug 6, 2007)

The tear down/bleach stuff method just won't get rid of them all. Those eggs have a magical casing that makes them very hard to kill. Even in my emersed tank, there are pond snails. I used new substrate, hardscape, bleached the tank, bleached the filter hoses and media, let that dry for a couple of months. I still have pond snails. Granted, there are only three, but there will be more. I removed the adults, but young'uns are sure to come soon. It's best to control them with lettuce, and careful feeding of your other fish, as well as smashing the ones you see against the glass. This will also trigger some fish to start hunting the snails that normally wouldn't. 

Note: When using lettuce to control snails, I use a small tupperware bowl, and weigh the lettuce down in it with a rock. Put it in there at lights out, and pick it up when you get up in the morning. I find most of the snails are in the bottom of the tupperware in the morning, and not on the lettuce itself. HTH


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## Walking_Target (Jul 16, 2008)

Snails are not the problem, as above, they are just feeding on dead material and whatever little nutients they can get out of fish waste. 

If you start feeding sparingly, you will see a drastic reduction in your snail population.

That being said, if you really want to get rid of the lil buggers, look for Dwarf Pufferfish or Loaches. Either of those fish will readily and obsessively hunt down any snails. If you go the puffer route, please make sure you do not have Malaysian Trumpet Snails, as they ruin the puffer's teeth.

Edit: I love the malaysian trumpet snails in my 10g, they help keep any algae under control and they do a wonderful job of stirring up the substrate. It helps that i don't overfeed, but i have a hard time seeing these little buggers becoming a problem if using the lettuce leaf trick once or twice a month.


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## Homer_Simpson (May 10, 2007)

Well, I know everyone's experience is different, so I can only share by experience(s).

(1) Limiting feeding in my experience does not dramatically reduce the snail population. I tried this and what ended up happening is that the snails went postal on my plants. They literally wiped out my java ferns and still continued to multiply.

(2) I have been meticulous about ensuring that my tanks are free of any dead plant matter and debris and religiously do weekly water changes. It makes no difference. When I rinse my filter floss, there are tons of babies in the floss, which gives you an idea of how bad the problem is.

(3) I turned up the c02 when I did not have any fish in the tank when I first set up my tank. That did little to stop them.

(4) I now use zucchini to bait them. It has not eliminated the problem but has kept the population from growing out of control. It works well for me as the otocat and shrimp I have in my tank(s) also feed off the zucchini.

Today I am going to pick up some Assasin Snails to see if they can do an assasination job on those pesky snails. My tanks are too small for loaches and dwarf puffers are out of the question as they would make short work of my other inhabitants.

Here is some interesting information on the Assassin Snail. IMHO, these snails are kind of pretty and not like those other butt ugly snails. They also tend not to feed on plants preferring a carnivourous diet of snails. However, if you are someone who values Malaysian Trumphet Snails, you may want to avoid these assassin snails as they are equal opportunity assasins and will not spare your Malaysian snails.
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Anentome_helena


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## fishsandwitch (Apr 20, 2008)

I have heard they can not kill MTS because they have a trapdoor. Dont know if it is true.


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## Aquarist_Fist (Jul 22, 2008)

Without a second tank, it will be very hard to get rid of the snails. Most effective ways of extermination take some time, and you can't keep the fish in bowls forever. Tearing done is not a very effective way. Plus, you will destroy many of your good bacteria boiling/baking your gravel, so you risk an ammonia problem.

Speaking of which, here is what worked for me ages ago. 

1. Feed sparingly for two weeks, then stop feeding entirely for another week. Gravel vac to get rid of food sources for the snails.

2. Evacuate fish (and shrimp).

3. Kick up the temperature. This will not kill any snails, but it will cause them to hatch faster.

4. Bomb the tank with A LOT of ammonia! Don't be shy, if your test kit reaches 8+ ppm, triple the amount. Let sit for a few hours, then do some big water changes.

5. Keep the ammonia levels at 8+ ppm for at least as long as your snails' eggs need to hatch, plus a couple days extra.

6. Wait until the ammonia has been absorbed (don't forget to check your nitrites). Do a big water change and reintroduce your fish.


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## ktsgolfer (Jul 1, 2008)

evac shrimp as stated above! Add puffer, that is all.


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## Sounguru (Jul 14, 2008)

Assassin Snails - Will first wipe out all the snails as large or larger than themselves Then they will start to work on the smaller snails down to about 1/2 their size then they will stop eating snails until the food source grows some. They leave the smallest snails for any eggs that they lay. I have watched 5 assassins clean out a 29 gallon of any large snails and there were close to 80 or 90 large snails in a couple of weeks Mediums went down about 2 weeks after that. All I'm left with is the small babys and 100's of those but as they grow the assassins are taking them down. So I am beginning to see a drop in the population of snails.

And by the way these are MTS.

Here is some more info for ya
Assassin Sanils

I am of the group saying that a complete teardown in the long run isn't gonna help ya. By the way snails are not that bad they are actually part of a healthy tank.


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## alexpk321 (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm puzzled. What I always do is when I do water changes, I simply look around and grab any snails I see and toss them in the waste water. Usually within a few weeks, the problem is gone or at least greatly controlled. Just keep plucking them out of the aquarium whenever you do a water change and I think over time, you'll hardly have any.


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## arndogg (Mar 24, 2007)

where does one get assassin snails?


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## Arakkis (Dec 7, 2007)

arndogg said:


> where does one get assassin snails?


how many do you want bro, I got em all day =)


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## Trag672 (Mar 2, 2008)

I had a ton of pond snails in my 10gal.... Now i have none... I am not sure if it was 

A. I started feeding fish only 1 time a day controlled portion
B. Neon tetras eating eggs?
C. Dojo Loach eating snails... (moveing to bigger tank now)

But now my algae is growing crazy...

I got some colorfull rams and they eat it all....

I think snails help out a tank IMO


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## greerh (Jan 29, 2004)

I've found that my khuli loaches are suprisingly good at getting rid of snails. I have few in my main tank. I have a group of 6 in my 125g tank. 

Also while I was in San Fran a few weeks ago, I went to aquaforest and the steinhart aquarium. I was very suprised that both of these had puffers in their display tanks. When I spoke to someone at aquaforest he said they commonly used peapuffers and peruvian puffers. He said they were good citizens as long as they were regularly fed meaty food (they feed frozen blackworms)


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## angel919 (Apr 26, 2006)

puffers hunt down snails like no 2morrow, their mouths are built for crunching up snail shells and they seem to love snails. 

You can just smash every snail you see against the glass, even shrimp will scavenge on dead snails. Anything else will learn that your magical finger means special snack time


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## Walking_Target (Jul 16, 2008)

Again though, most smaller puffer species can't crack the shell on a Malaysian Trumpet Snail, often the can damage their teeth on the tough shell and this leads to a slow death via starvation for the puffer


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## Rowerzysta (Jul 29, 2008)

*update*

Well....its been 3-4 weeks since i've done the teardown and i thought i'd give you guys an update, for those interested.

First of all, taking suggestion of one of the replies, i baked the gravel instead of boiling it. The rest of the plan went as describes in the first post of this thread.

Even though i was being careful not to destroy the bacteria in the ceramic balls from the filter, it looks like i was not succesful. After the teardown and rebuild the cycling of the tank began basicaly from scratch. I had a large ammonia spike followed by a nitrite spike. This took about 3 weeks to finish, i was doing frequent large water changes to try to keep the levels of toxins low so that the fish wont die. Out of 25+ fish i have, only one small Glowfish has died.

The plants, after their chlorox 3 minute bath, seem to be devided somewhat. Some are unaffected and are growing nicely, and some are slowly slowly rotting. I'm keeping them all in to see it they will recover. But perhaps the chlorox was a bit harsh on them, from what i read there are other options as far as solutions for soaking plants that might be less harsh, but chlorox was the one i had under the sink, so i tried it.

And finally, best of all, i have not seem ANY snails or snail eggs sofar. I've cleaned the filter thoroughly twice in these 4 weeks, and have not seen any signs of live snails. There are plently of old dried up shells from the gravel baking process, but all they hold are charred slugs, and that i can tolerate. 

From now on, i'll definitely think twice about putting anything new into the tank without first somehow sterilizing it.


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## leemacnyc (Dec 28, 2005)

go get some dwarf puffers @ new world aquarium when they return:smile:


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## Nue (Dec 27, 2009)

Assassins are very nice snails. The problem with them is they will eat all of your snails, then you will have to start feeding them. Mine will only eat snails, and bloodworms. I just had a group of them take down a very large brigg. Thats not the fun part. But i spend about 20$ a month on feeder snails. You can just feed them bloodworms, but they wont breed readily


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## Firestarter (Dec 28, 2009)

I have always allowed snails in my planted aquariums my shrimp love them. And they seem to do a good job fertilizing my plants.


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## OverStocked (May 26, 2007)

Now you have to deal with perpetually rotting snails... Killing without removing just creates another ammonia source.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

I would not recommend doing anything drastic. You just one left can create the entire population. Also, you will eniviatively end up from more when you decide to get more plants.

My advice is just don't give them an oppertunity to thrive. My population has slowly declided just off of elminating food sources.

If you can move the fish to another tank, then you can crank up the co2, that helps alot. It will kill off snails, give them nothing new to eat, and make the remaining ones easy to kill by hand.

I don't know, I have never done a full tear down but it seems like even when I do well at getting rid of them, I buy a new plant, trade a member, right back to where I was. Doing a more basic approach has kept them down to where I have to look for them.


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## eyebeatbadgers (Aug 6, 2007)

something tells me the OP isn't still wondering about this since it hasn't been bumped since 11/08.:icon_frow


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## accordztech (Dec 6, 2004)

Homer_Simpson said:


> Well, I know everyone's experience is different, so I can only share by experience(s).
> 
> 
> (3) I turned up the c02 when I did not have any fish in the tank when I first set up my tank. That did little to stop them.



I notice that when my co2 is low my snails start to multiply, when my co2 is stable I see maybe about 15 or so small ones but when my co2 goes bonkers and I have to make another mixture shrimps will tripple.

I dont have ram shells though thankfully. I have this other one thats like a sideways cinabon. I also have these cool little ones that look like nerite snails but smaller (those guys I like)


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## bcdudley (Nov 18, 2009)

I went with the tear down method a couple of years back and was successful with it on my non-planted Mbuna tank. It was a full day job and required replacing 100% of the substrate, but imo it was worth it. I have not seen a single snail since then. I really have no idea how they got there to start with except maybe one of my cichlids ate some eggs that hatched in my tank.
I tried the clown loaches prior to the tear down with little success, but I do think they contributed to the problem not coming back.

I did have to recycle the tank, but I was prepared for that and reseeded the tank with the media I already had.


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## Bertminator (Sep 1, 2020)

What about baking the rocks, spreading them on concrete floor till they dry 100% after the baking (supposedly snails can't survive without water). then remove 100% of the tanks water, and let tank dry for a week or so, in the meantime boil your filter & scrape ALL the algae off the sides of the tank, and buy new filters. Then once all is dried up, start over? 

I am doing this very soon as I never wanted these damn invasive snails, and I have a local (lousy) aquarium store to thank for this MESS! Never had snails in over 15 years of having my aquarium...I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THEM!!!!


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