# Ramshorn snails, population levels and control.



## g4search (Aug 10, 2014)

Matt,
I think you are getting ahead of yourself. My best advice is to wait and see.

Before you transfer your ramshorn make sure that the eggs hatch. I would keep the new hatchlings in the QT tank and raise them there. You got to feed them, unless you have plenty of stuff in the QT tank. If they don't get enough to eat, they stay small and eventually die. That would be limiting the numbers. With a good food supply however, they will grow fast.

I don't know under what conditions you keep your main tank, but you may be in for a surprise. See:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=729890

As to the population, the ones I keep in low tech tanks together with other critters are somehow self-limiting and stay in perhaps a dozen or so in numbers. If you want to make absolutely sure you are never running out, you should keep a breeding tank just for your ramshorn and that's not difficult.


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

Yes, I am to a degree getting ahead of myself. I like to be prepared.

That said, my main tank should be a good environment for snails. I don't inject CO2 (yet?), and has somewhat high pH (pH 7.6) and somewhat hard (11 dGH), mildly alkaline (4 dKH) water. 

The hardness is something I add, as I keep mollies in the tank (which my wife and daughter love). The pH comes from my water supply, where they intentionally lime the water with calcium oxide to reduce corrosion.


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## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

As with any snail, it can be difficult to know how many you actually have. A tank I was sure only had a couple dozen at most, turned out to have over sixty adults when I broke it down. 

Curiously, I stumbled on a control method I didn't expect: pond snails. But a specific variety. I'd had a few in my main tank, but they're *very* slow breeders and I'd lost all my young ones to an excess of assassins so I reached out to TPT for replacements. I ended up with enough to seed not only my main tank, but a smaller 20g that had recently had two dozen adult rams added to it. Egg cases everywhere, of course, and I was rather dreading the population explosion. 

Instead, what I found after a few days, were pond snails slurping up the ramshorn eggs like they were jam. Within a week the leaves and glass were clean; no eggs to be found. A month later, as a test, I moved all but one of the ponds out of the tank and within a few days there were visible egg cases again. Three weeks later, dozens of pinhead sized baby rams. As best msjinkzd and I can guess, they're very probably lymnaea stagnalis, though it's up for debate as to the exact species. 

Eventually I'd like to send some of these out into the world to see if other folks have the same results, but given their low reproduction rate it's gonna' be quite awhile before I have many more of them.


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## BBradbury (Nov 8, 2010)

*Ramshorn Snails*

Hello matt...

I keep quite a few Ramshorn in the tank. Limit the food and their numbers will stay at a reasonable level. You can use the old iceberg lettuce trick if you think you have too many. Just drop a nice, healthy piece of it in the tank. Ramshorn snails can't resist it and latch on to it. After a day or so remove the piece and throw it away. You can use a wooden spoon to crush the shells. The fish will relish the meat and the small pieces of shell will dissolve in the tank water.

Just a couple of thoughts.

B


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## Viper (Jan 9, 2013)

I too received ramshorns on a plant shipment. Not long after I see 4 small ramshorns sliding along in the tank. At first I thought they were cool. That is until they started booming in numbers and eating my plants and driftwood. I had 3 Manzanita branches that create a nice "tree" look. Well, they chewed all of the branched parts of one of the Manzanitas to the point that really only the stump is left. My other Manzanitas have lost small branches as well. 

I have shipped out over 100 ramshorns all from those original 4. This was all within about a year and a half's time. 

I just recently bought assassin snails because the weather is getting colder and shipping them out will become more of a hassle. And I can't bring myself to crushing them. So I'll let something else kill them .


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## mattcham (Mar 7, 2014)

I think nerites and assassin snails can coexist.

I also got hitchhiker snails on my plants. I remove them when I see them but I am losing the battle. I used to remove one snail per day, now I am removing 6 or 7 per day. I don't even have fish in this planted tank so the snails are thriving just on plant debris. Will need a loach or assassin snail soon...


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

True, assassins won't usually take down a nerite, it is a hard target due to the trapdoor and they will generally go for easier prey or food... unless there's no other prey or food.

Regardless assassins or loaches will eventually eliminate the entire ramshorn snail population, which is also not something I'm interested in. 

I'm wondering if there are things that can control a ramshorn population that is growing too large on hard to control food sources (plant detritus, algae, etc) without exterminating the ramshorns completely. 

Thin the herd, not nuke the entire populace kinda thing.

The lettuce approach seems the best one proposed so far....


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## Dugsul808 (Jul 30, 2012)

Just get some assassin snails


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

Why? Have you read the first post in this thread? At the moment if i wanted them all dead i'd just empty my qt tank. Easy.


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## Gametheory (Apr 25, 2014)

Two scarlet badis' and 2 panda garras have kept my ramshorn population in check. Both species can only really eat the baby snails.

Note about both species:

The scarlet badis will most likely need other live microfauna to eat besides the baby snails.
Garras will clean up any food that makes it to the bottom.


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

Interesting... I can't really see doing the badis. What I'm reading suggests they are shy and aren't really community suitable except with a few fish... If that is true, my mollies would probably harass them to death.

Garras might be possible, but at 77F my tank is at their upper temperature range. (I have hybrid mollies needing 77+)

Of course, that might bring me to my solution..Some websites allege that mollies been known to eat small baby snails, but not larger ones... They do have a habit of picking at surfaces to get at algae and would probably eat a young snail unless its shell was too hard.

Interesting things to think about...


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## Gametheory (Apr 25, 2014)

mattinmd said:


> Interesting... I can't really see doing the badis. What I'm reading suggests they are shy and aren't really community suitable except with a few fish... If that is true, my mollies would probably harass them to death.
> 
> Garras might be possible, but at 77F my tank is at their upper temperature range. (I have hybrid mollies needing 77+)
> 
> ...


IMO mollies eat almost anything and breed all day lmao. So you are prob good with them. I have my badis in my 10g community tank (half which is heavily planted) and they seem to be fine.

Of course though, there are plenty more options out there, but garras and badis is what worked for me in that scenario.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## n25philly (Dec 12, 2013)

I have 2 cpo's in my tank. They will eat small ramshorn snails, but not prolific enough to wipe them out. Can't beat their big personalities either.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

mattinmd said:


> Interesting... I can't really see doing the badis. What I'm reading suggests they are shy and aren't really community suitable except with a few fish... If that is true, my mollies would probably harass them to death.
> 
> Garras might be possible, but at 77F my tank is at their upper temperature range. (I have hybrid mollies needing 77+)
> 
> ...


My badis badis is in a 10 gallon with some daisy rice fish and a betta. She appreciates the company and is actually more outgoing with other fish present. For awhile, it was just her and another female badis badis and they hid all of the time. (The other one jumped through a tiny space between the glass lid and tank rim.)

She also does a great job of eating up ramshorn snail eggs. They're awesome little fishes.


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## Linwood (Jun 19, 2014)

I've had pretty good luck in a 45G tank with ghost shrimp and angels. Both will eat the ramshorn eggs. They won't find all of them so some will still reproduce, but they go a long way toward controlling them.

I tried shrimp in a bigger tank, but the congo tetras developed a taste for them. That tank is starting to become a bit over populated. Hasn't gotten so bad yet to do anything, but it is pretty amazing the difference. And I have angels in that tank also; the difference is the shrimp, apparently.


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## blue-sun (Jul 25, 2014)

I'm dealing with a Ranshorn overgrowth. I've pulled out dozens at a time and flushed them down the toilet. I purchased a YoYo Loach a few weeks ago at the LFS and he did nothing and recently has gone MIA, assumed KIA in my 75G. Got an Assassin snail 2 days ago from a local member that I've known for years who's wife just got a job at my work, I'm crossing my fingers that he will do the trick.


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## highstakes (Sep 21, 2014)

my badis badis love eating snails I pluck them out of shrimp tank and throw them in with the badis and they go to town on them like a kid on Christmas day also feed them scuds and frozen bloodworms


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