Snails And Fish Eggs.

[CatWhat]

I have recently encountered a problem with pest snails in most of my aquariums. I don't mind them in fry tanks as they seem to provide a low waste cleaning crew. BUT I am concerned that the pest snails in my egg scatter breeding tanks may be posing a problem for the eggs sitting on the plants and bottom of the tank. So will snails in fact eat the eggs and if so I need to get rid of them. I was thinking introducing some assassin snails would do the trick and once the pest snails are gone I would just remove the assassin snails. Is this a good idea? Thanks for the help.

[Abby]

Ahoy!

The short answer is (in my experience) a resounding yes all around. Most snails will eat your fish eggs. Unfortunately assassin snails will also likely eat your eggs. If your snail problem isn't too severe you could try a manual removal.

Blanch a big chunk of cucumber or zucchini and put that in the tank. Leave it overnight and in the morning you can remove the veg with snails attached. Repeat this a few nights and you will get the bulk of them. From there, hand pick any elusive molluscs that you run in to and you're off to the races.

Like I said, most snails will eat your eggs so this may be the easiest, safest and mos effective method of removal.

Good luck!!!

[CatWhat]

Thanks for the tip. What I first thought was a minor snail issue is a totally crazy problem. The reality is I will most likely have to remove the adults once again and strip the tank down and try to manually kill all the snails I can find. I will try the cucumber idea when the time comes and hopefully I can rid the tank of all the snails. That's the one thing I hate about live plants, the risk of snails.

[Abby]

You could do a dip of your plants prior to adding them to your tank. I use Potassium Permanganate on the plants going in to tanks that I would like to keep snail free.

What kind of snails are you dealing with? Pond snails, ramshorn and MTS won't eat your plants (they will only eat dead/decaying matter) and can be quite beneficial to your tank. Tearing it down might be excessive. And removing adults could also be tricky...snails can reproduce at an alarmingly young age.

I would go with the veg trick for a week or so and see how the population looks. I've cleaned out a 75gallon of pond snails using this trick.

Good luck mate

[Abby]

Just thinking....you could snag a cooli loach. They eat smallish snails and they're kind of interesting to look at AND they'll pretty much leave your fish alone. You'll hardly see it.

[cullymoto]

You will never eliminate snails by removing them. Ever. Period.

You can only "control" them via removing them and natural predation.

I had snails... Like an std really... A friend gave me some plants and it escalated from there.

To get rid of the snails, I removed all my fish and dumped in a container of potassium permanganate and let it soak for 12 hours. The water was brown, way past purple lol. Plants, and, filter, gravel everything got that soak.

Drained, rinsed, drained again etc. re set up and now have 0 snails.

Last time I take a ride from a friend...

[CatWhat]

Oh I'm sorry I meant the adult Bucktooth tetras that I am trying to breed in the tank. What are the details with using Potassium Permanganate? I am not familiar with using it what so ever. Where can you buy it, how much do you add to a bucket that I could dip the plants in? Do I rinse everything it touches prior to placing that item back in with fish?

[cullymoto]

Hydrogen peroxide neutralizes pp. and in 8 hours hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen so it's a great way to set your mind at ease.

The proper way to use pp is to make a stock solution. An example is 1l mixed with enough pp until you cant see through it anymore, but yet it is still pink / purple. Then to use this stock solution like any other med or bath at a safe dose. A stock solution lasts for 6 months.

You can get it from any pharmacy, by asking at the counter. It's nasty stuff so it is borderline "controlled" they ask what your using it for,take your name, and then give you enough to kill a small city for 8 dollars. Lol. You can also find it at a hot tub / r/o filter store for significantly higher prices.

It is used in manufacturing as an industrial dye. It is extremely effective at turning your fingers purple / brown.

Do not inhale, ingest, or get the dry powder in into your eyes etc.

In aquaculture it is used as a bath to treat external parasites, similar to a salt dip but more tolerable depending on the fish.

As a plant dip, it's very safe. Use whatever quantity makes you happy for a few seconds. A rinse in tap water until the rinse water no longer runs pink, and your now snail free.

When I had snails, the largest deposit I found was inside my filter, and gravel. Getting just the plants will prove pointless.

[CatWhat]

Thanks for the tip. So I assume I would have to shock the filter media as well then, would this also kill the beneficial bacteria in the media?

[Abby]

Cully has a very viable method there but in my humble opinion, I'm not sure if that's 100% necessary. I'm sure Cully had a snail problem which was effectively dealt with via this method. But like I said, I had pond and ramshorn in my 75 gallon which I was able to completely eliminate by capture over a 7-10 day period. I've been months now without seeing a single snail in my tank (and that's with actively searching)

Wiping the entire tank and filter as your first attempt at a purge seems like going from 0 to 100 without taking any steps on the middle. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that method won't work. Absolutely it will! But at what cost? A lot of time, effort and having to recycle your tank.

My thought would be to absolutely keep this on the list of options but try the simpler methods first. Worst case scenario is you've eliminated the bulk of the snails in a week but still get the odd straggler. If you feel you can't get them all, then restart the entire tank.

Also depending on what decorations/substrate you have, PP will stain it purple permanently (sand especially).

Good luck with the snails! In a lot of my tanks I just let the little guys do what they want...but I can absolutely see how in a breeding tank they would be a big pain in the ____.

[cullymoto]

Yes and yes. The filter media will contain a whole pile of snail eggs. Remove your media and have a look, a clutch of snail eggs looks like an always wet drop of water stuck to something or other with a few little specs inside. Think of it this way "if tank water could touch it, than a snail laid eggs on it" mystery snails can lay eggs almost as soon as they hatch and they reproduce asexually. One snail will become thousands.

PP absolutely kills your bacteria colony.

I tried other methods of snail removal including commercial snail products such as had a snail. These contain copper sulphate and in theory kill molluscs and invertebrates. My snails survived it and so did my ghost shrimp.

The vegetable in a submerged baby food jar overnight thing works to controll the population, but for me that was not enough.

Let me see if I can dig up the info I used to learn about pp. I'll repost soon

[Abby]

I tried other methods of snail removal including commercial snail products such as had a snail. These contain copper sulphate and in theory kill molluscs and invertebrates. My snails survived it and so did my ghost shrimp.

Ha! Now that's something we can agree on! Those products on the market are rubbish. I ha a similar experience and watched those little slimy monsters frolllic in their poison like they were having a pool party. In the end, I don't think I had a single fatality from it!

Again I would ask if you know the kind of snails you're dealing with. Mystery snails leave giant colourful egg clutches which are easily removed. Pond will leave the little "drop of water" which Cully speaks of. Also easily removed but indeed, tough to find.

I would still be hesitant to wipe the tank and start over. But if you have the time and inclination, it is indeed an effective method.

Final option would be to host a "Taste of France" dinner party and tell your guests to bring a fork as you have a fun activity planned!

Cheers

[cullymoto]

Not the link I was looking for as it was more informative, but this has all you need about PP.

http://www.bidka.org/pp1.shtml

[CatWhat]

The snails I am having a problem with are pond snails. From reading the info on PP I'd rather not go down that road as I don't want to recycle a tank I have had going for 5 years now. Perhaps I will try the food method combined with a search and destroy method. I should have given more detail when I mentioned taking down the tank and starting fresh. I just mean take the breeding trio of bucktooth out, marbles, java moss and spawning mops and then try the two mentioned methods. I need to add a plastic grate over the bottom as an egg barrier and add two sponge filters so I can really go at this Bucktooth tetra breeding project proper.

[flash_oesc]

I've been following this... I also have a snail problem lmao