Dealing with Snails in a (non-planted) Aquarium

[Sidrock]

Hi guys,

I have a major outbreak of snails in one of my tanks. The tank is a 2ft x 1.5ft x 1ft grow-out for 4 Yellow Labs with one YoYo loach in it. The substrate is (coarse) sand.

I feed them floating Hikari Cichlid-Excel and have limited the food to the tank to the bear minimum.

The next step is to move the loach to some other tank and add a bit of salt to this set-up. The idea being, cichlids will not have a problem with a bit of salt but the snails would.

While I check if this step works, do you guys have any other ideas? Assassin Snails are surprisingly hard to find (at a reasonable rate) and I am not sure if the loaches would do the job.

This tank is very well set with a huge sponge filter... I don't really want to nuke it unless I have to.

Cheers,
Sid

[SCORPIO]

Contact to Royston (He is also from Mumbai). He have some spare assassin snails. He will sure help you.

[Abhishek]

Sid,

Before using the salt treatment, drop some puffer or clown loach they will take care of it, assassin snails work also but you require to drop many of them for immediate effect!!!

[Zakk]

Sid,

try the sunken cucumber trick.

Blanch a few slices in fresh water. Allow it to cool and then sink it to the bottom with a rock. Do this just before lights out and by morning you should have the snails on the cucumber. just take it out and rinse it under a tap and repeat till u feel the cucumber is starting to rot. repeat this till you are done with the snails.

cheapest and most effective trick i have learnt in this hobby without having to invest in livestock or increase my bioload.

[vijendra_s123]

Hi Sid,

Try adding Botia Striata (commonly known as Zebra Loach) http://www.loaches.com/species-index/botia-striata to your tank. I have done the same in my 4' planted and have seen them devour the snails like crazy. Also they are easily available in Maharashtra as they are natives of western ghats and are a cheaper option then Clown Loaches and stay just under 4" in size at the max.

An lfs in Gurgaon was selling it under the name of Queen Loach which is a different species (Botia Dario), so be carefull while buying them.

[cichlids]

Add a few clown loaches.. It will solve your problem

[Sidrock]

Thanks for the input guys.

Here's the action plan:

Attempt 1: Adding salt and trying that blanched cucumber method

Attempt 2: Adding YoYo or Zebra loach. (I am not sure if I can find assassin snails.)

Don't really want to add Clown Loaches (as they get huge and need a large school and are expensive) or puffers (as they are brackish waster fish and quite nippy and can also get huge).

I will post how this turns out.

Thanks again,
Sid

[Zakk]

Just to clarify,

Blanching is to semi boil a vegetable.

[apuda2010]

Hi Sid,

The treatment will also depend on what snail infestation you have. MTS (Malaysian Trumpet Snails) are terribly difficult to eliminate and multiply like rabbits. Puffers are the best solution for MTS as they have hard enough mouths to crush the outer shell. If puffers dont work , the only other solution is to nuke the tank.

The common Ramshorn snail (small reddish round body) is also a prolific breeder but is contained nicely by Botia Striata.These have soft shells and come out the moment you switch off the lights. Clowns are a strict no no as they become very large and will definitely uproot plants etc.

Assassins are a good solution...but to be honest I am struggling myself to procure some of these in Delhi.

[maaz]

Why dont you Try H2O2 Hydrogen Peroxide excessive amount will kill every live form...before i already try this with my plants..I just use 5 ml in 10 liters of water i just pore then for 30 sec then all snails killed in that time..if you want to try Becareful whule using of hydrogen peroxide..ok