# bladder snails



## snowpetals (Apr 13, 2014)

some bladder snail eggs came in on some moss I ordered and at first I was killing them but after watching them...
they're kind of cute.... !
there's only 2 in there right now, do they reproduce very quickly?

they are fast and very efficient cleaning machines.
especially compared to my slow, lazy rabbit snails.

why do they have such a terrible reputation?


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## bostoneric (Sep 7, 2011)

some people just dont like snails in their tanks. doesnt matter really which.
as long as they have decent food source they'll reproduce pretty quickly.


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## snowpetals (Apr 13, 2014)

i don't feed supplement wafers etc much and when i do they ignore it 

maybe i just have a soft spot for snails.


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## cjstl (Mar 4, 2013)

My experience is that bladder snails will eat holes in plants, expecially java ferns and crypts. I prefer ramshorns, because they don't touch my plants unless they're absolutely starving.


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## jeepguy (Jul 24, 2013)

My bladder snails bred out of control because I overfed. They outcompete mts. That said, a week of yoyo loaches and I don't have a single bladder/pond snail left and the mts are making a comeback. Guess the mts don't taste all that good. 
They never touched any healthy plant of mine, from anubias, ferns, moss, and stems. They will eat dead leaves and left over food though. They push my red cherry shrimp off wafers I drop in. Glad to have them gone in my main tank but I guess it's back to scraping the glass of algae at weekly water changes.


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## MrCain (Jul 2, 2013)

cjstl said:


> My experience is that bladder snails will eat holes in plants, expecially java ferns and crypts...


This has been exactly my experience with them as well, putting pinholes in leaves until they start to melt away.

I've also had a terrible, terrible time getting rid of ALL of them. The few times I've had them hitchhike on new plants or other items, they seem to hide well for a while, then you wake up one day and BOOM! tiny little snails everywhere. Even if I smoosh all the ones I can find, I never feel confident that they are completely gone and have had some re-appear out of seemingly nowhere after a month of thinking I was in the clear. :angryfire


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## snowpetals (Apr 13, 2014)

so far they've only been eating detritus and algae, so I hope it stays that way!


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## cjstl (Mar 4, 2013)

MrCain said:


> This has been exactly my experience with them as well, putting pinholes in leaves until they start to melt away.
> 
> I've also had a terrible, terrible time getting rid of ALL of them. The few times I've had them hitchhike on new plants or other items, they seem to hide well for a while, then you wake up one day and BOOM! tiny little snails everywhere. Even if I smoosh all the ones I can find, I never feel confident that they are completely gone and have had some re-appear out of seemingly nowhere after a month of thinking I was in the clear. :angryfire


Put a couple of assassin snails in your afflicted tank and give them a month or so. I had them wipe out an entire colony of bladder snails in a 10G, to the point that they never re-appeared and it has been almost a year. I think they even eat the eggs. They don't do so well against MTS, but they sure love bladder snails!


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## snowpetals (Apr 13, 2014)

awwww sad. im going to have to start a bladder snail rescue


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## MrCain (Jul 2, 2013)

cjstl said:


> Put a couple of assassin snails in your afflicted tank and give them a month or so. I had them wipe out an entire colony of bladder snails in a 10G, to the point that they never re-appeared and it has been almost a year. I think they even eat the eggs. They don't do so well against MTS, but they sure love bladder snails!


Thanks for the advice. I actually am in the process of trying that exact thing in a 20g, but with only 1 assassin snail...I don't want to have an assassin snail problem now...especially hungry ones in a shrimp tank...but the one doesn't seem to be making much of a dent yet, that I notice at least, after it's 3rd or 4th week in there now.


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## cjstl (Mar 4, 2013)

MrCain said:


> Thanks for the advice. I actually am in the process of trying that exact thing in a 20g, but with only 1 assassin snail...I don't want to have an assassin snail problem now...especially hungry ones in a shrimp tank...but the one doesn't seem to be making much of a dent yet, that I notice at least, after it's 3rd or 4th week in there now.


Yes, you have to be careful with them around shrimp. I've seen them kill freshly-molted Amanos before. I had two in my 10G and fortunately they never bred. After they cleared out all the snails, I moved them around various tanks trying to find a home. One has since died.


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