# Snails - Argh! - Getting Rid of Snails in a New Planted Tank



## TwistedAngel (Jul 10, 2013)

Those look like bladder snails. They don't bother live plants (they will eat dead/dying leaves) and are excellent for cleanup. They tend to populate quickly but in my personal experience they die down once the tank is established and becomes balanced as long as you are not overfeeding.

I prefer manual removal if it becomes necessary. If you can't stand them, take a thin plastic water bottle, the kind with ridges, and remove the label. Cut the top off of it 1/3 of the way down - a razor works best. Throw some bait in the bottom and put the top back on upside down so that it acts as a funnel - snails crawl in and can't get out. Orient it vertically in the tank and you won't accidentally catch fish.

Let it sit over night and remove it in the morning. Do not release or just throw away the live snails - they are invasive. Freeze them, give them to someone who has a puffer to feed, or find someone like me who keeps shrimp and wants them in their tank to take them off your hands.


----------



## TwistedAngel (Jul 10, 2013)

Oh, and if you decide to keep them or until you get rid of them, if you have a hob or canister filter get a sponge pre-filter for the intake. You don't want them getting it and messing up the impeller.


----------



## P.Isley (Feb 18, 2020)

Snails are great. Really helpful especially in a new tank as they clean up plant detritus, algae and extra fish food. They also tend to self-regulate their population. Lotsa snails = Lotsa snail food. If you keep your tank clean you’ll always have several in sight but usually something has to be really off to be overrun. I’d consider keeping them!


----------



## DallasFishGuy (Jul 11, 2021)

As your tank progresses and you add or introduce more plants snails happen. I started off killing them; but soon understood that they breed and populate only as needed. Meaning if your tank is dirty or you are over feeding your fish the snails will reproduce as result. If not they will not. I have since learned to use them as indicator to how well my aquarium is doing. I do not kill or remove them. They populate my 90 gal sometimes and then become few at other times. They clean really well. Additionally I have 30 nerite snails,


----------



## Wantsome99 (Nov 27, 2016)

I hate snails with a passion. I've been keeping fish for 30 years. Bombing your tank with chemicals will cause a massive die off of snails and you're ammonia is going to skyrocket. Not to mention the effects it will have on the fish. Chances are the snails will come back.

The best way I found to deal with snails is:

1 Buy tissue culture plants. 

2 Assassin snails.

3 Soak plants for 48 hours in alum. 1tbs per 16 cups of water.

I had a 75 gallon African tank with thousands of Malaysian trumpet snails. It had so many snails at feeding time the sand looked like it was boiling. I put 6 assassins in and within 2 months no more mts.

The 100% way to get rid of snails is to rip the tank down and let everything dry out for a week. Everything needs to be completely dry including the filter impeller housing. Start over and use alum to treat plants and buy tissue culture plants.


----------



## mjord (Jul 23, 2016)

I had an awful time getting rid of MTS, and like Wantsome99 had a very advanced infestation. I had read MTS stay underground. Not the ones i had. There were so many they would be on everything. I'd walk into my office in the dark, shine a light on the tank, and count hundreds on the glass. At that point I'd take a small dust pan and put the edge against the glass and slide it bottom to top capturing 20-30 each time and discard them. Night after night I'd catch hundreds of snails. I finally found out about fenbendazole, which is an ingredient in dog wormer medications. I started by dosing so many grams per day, which wasn't enough. I became so despondent with the whole experience I eventually just dumped the entire package of fenbendazole into the tank. Like magic, the snails were gone almost immediately. Feeling I'd finally won, I tore down the tank and left the hobby for awhile. On returning, I was careful to only buy tissue culture plants. Then one day I bought a plant through the For Sale thread, and I got bladder snails. Geez, I felt I had gotten an STD or something! Anyway, back to fenbendazole and voila, no more snails. If you catch them early you have a better chance of getting it back in control. I'm convinced aquarists who like snails have never had the plague I was faced with. Best of luck.


----------



## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

mjord said:


> I'd walk into my office in the dark, shine a light on the tank, and count hundreds on the glass.


That's because they're nocturnal. They primarily live in the substrate and come out at night to feed.



mjord said:


> I'm convinced aquarists who like snails have never had the plague I was faced with


Or we learn to control their population by controlling their food source(s). There's never really a need to dose a tank with medication to control a snail population. 

Dosing a tank when there are tons of snails only leads to other problems - like decaying snails for several weeks/months with no cleanup crew to deal with them. That has the potential wreck water parameters and harm other livestock in the tank. While it may not have been an issue in your tank, it often is for others. And it prevents them from owning larger snails like Nerites and Mysteries for months or years. In some cases, even shrimp have been impacted.


----------

