# How Did I Get Snails?



## stacey (Nov 16, 2010)

Hi,

I woke up this morning and found baby snails crawling on the inside of my tank's glass. I have not bought any plants. The only thing I can think of is that one must have hitched a ride on one of the new gouramis I bought two days ago.

Has anyone ever got snails just from buying a fish?

Will this turn into a problem? In the event of snail overpopulation, what do I do with extra snails? I want to do the most humane thing possible. Thanks.

-Stacey


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

Did you dump the bag water into the tank, or net the fish out of the bag and discard the water? I doubt they were on the fish itself, but they might have been scooped up with water when the bag the fish were transported in was filled, and were simply too small to be noticeable.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Yeah, never dump the water from the fish store in your tank unless you want their problems. Just a good practice not to.

Humane? If I could individually cause mine a slow death it wouldn't matter to me, lol. As it is, I just wait until they get on my glass and smash them with my finger. Very quick death, so I guess that is humane enough IMO. I hate snails in my tank - at least the uninvited kind anyway.


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## mfgann (Oct 21, 2010)

I'd say chris is right.. also the petsmart clerk inevitably gets a gravel or two in his fishcatching attempts. Might have been on one of them. Once you have a couple, you may as well have a hundred.

As for whether it is a problem.. it depends. Some people like them just fine, some hate them. The snails will eat any leftover food and munch on any algae they find, so if you want to have less snails, don't overfeed. That will work a bit. Aside from that, the other solutions all involve snails dying. There are snail killer chemicals that are safe for fish, but would make ever keeping shrimp or other invertebrates a problem. You can get a loach, which loves to munch on snails, but be careful.. many grow very large. You'd have to remind us your tank size and whats in there to know if that would work. You can get an assassin snail, which is basically a type of snail that eats other snails, but doesnt reproduce as easily (and if it does, they can be sold). As for myself, when I see the type of snails I _don't_ want, I crush them, and the fish munch on them. IMHO its not any less humane than fishfood, though perhaps a little more gross. 

I'd say the easiest solutions are to leave them be, and if you really decide you hate them, get an assassin snail.

EDIT:
Oh yeah, forgot you can "trap" them. Just take a peice of cucumber or zuchini and zap it in the microwave for a few seconds. Put it in the tank (or in a jar in a tank if you like) and by the next morning the snails will probably be munching on it. Remove and dispose of snails however you please. Repeat until snails are under control.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

My fish love to eat the snails I kill!


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## Gizmo (Dec 6, 2010)

I've heard tell you can blanch a zucchini and hang it on a string in your tank overnight, then pull it out with all the snails on it (might take a few tries to get most of them). I use assassin snails myself, but my only reservation is it can take months to get the snail population under control with Assassins. Copper will kill snails, but it also kills any invertebrates like shrimp, and stays in the water a long time.

Either way, those little pests will hardly ever be completely eradicated short of poisoning them. Good luck!


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## WhiteGloveAquatics (Sep 3, 2009)

Well..... whats new and whats used in the tank?


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## paronaram (Jul 12, 2008)

[email protected] said:


> I've heard tell you can blanch a zucchini and hang it on a string in your tank overnight, then pull it out with all the snails on it (might take a few tries to get most of them). I use assassin snails myself, but my only reservation is it can take months to get the snail population under control with Assassins. Copper will kill snails, but it also kills any invertebrates like shrimp, and stays in the water a long time.
> 
> Either way, those little pests will hardly ever be completely eradicated short of poisoning them. Good luck!


+1 AGREE 

Invest in some Assassin snail! Works 100%, and if they start breading don't worry, you can sale baby's for big $$$. 
I clean up snail catastrophe in 2 tanks this way.

Don't forget to leave some snails a side to feed Assassin snails later


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## stacey (Nov 16, 2010)

Thanks to everyone for the responses on my snail post.

I have an update:

That morning about an hour after finding the babies, I looked in the aquarium and they were all gone. They've never been seen again so I assume they were eaten by something in my tank. I do not know what fish I have that would do that, because I don't have any clown loaches.

Anyway, I decided I wanted some snails to help clean the glass, so I bought two mystery snails (one blue, one ivory) that I was told would not breed.

By the way, I've had my tank since October 31 and the interior of the glass is looking a little dirty. There are just a few small spots of algae but mostly it seems to be some kind of white or foggy grime everywhere. Should I clean this off or do I need to leave dirt on the glass for the snails and clown pleco? (I do put one algae wafer in my tank every night. I have a 10-gallon.)

Thanks!

-Stacey


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

re: the white/foggy grime - make sure that its really on the inside, not the outside of the glass (I've made that mistake myself). If it is on the inside, watch your snails/pleco when they are near it. Do they scrub it off, avoid it, make no dent in it? If it looks like they're working on it, you can probably leave it, if they go a few days and aren't making a change, you can work on it. One of the things I do is I scrub the glass in the front but not the sides and back, that makes sure I have a crystal clear view, but I don't disturb the things that my cleaning squad like to eat. Since you're putting in algae tablets, they won't starve no matter what, but it is nice to leave them things to go looking for around the tank. It gives them things to do.


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## NursePlaty (Feb 5, 2010)

jrman83 said:


> As it is, I just wait until they get on my glass and smash them with my finger.


*LOL. my friend does this too. too gross for me especially the ramshorn which literally bleed.... when you crush them. 

What I do is every snail I find, i use a bamboo stick and i shove them in the substrate to die. Or, I scoop them out with a net and i flush em. 

I hate snails. The mystery ones im ok with. I have a magenta mystery snail, its light pink/purple and white striped, very pretty*


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## Santaaa (Dec 20, 2010)

Kuhlie loaches work great and stay small. Many say they don't eat snails but they love smashed ones and two I think they eat the eggs not the snails but also steal fish eggs. My population has dropped to nothing of the pond snails. I think they eat the eggs but not the snails and I think they take care of the extra foods but you hardly ever see the kuhlie loaches as they burry themselves. Great for fish like kribs that may breed to much. It will steal their eggs. Feed less often or get a feeding ring.


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

stacey said:


> so I bought two mystery snails (one blue, one ivory) that I was told would not breed.


Welllllll....if they are male and female, then they would breed. But nothing like your typical pest snails that breed asexually.



Santaaa said:


> Kuhlie loaches work great and stay small. Many say they don't eat snails but they love smashed ones


I can say that out of all the years of keeping Khulii's, I have never seem em munch a live one. Now squished ones...well...that's a different story. A squished snail is fishy nummy-num. )

There's not too many species that will eat a live snail that we can keep in a "normal" community tank. By that I mean some species are agressive like the cute little puffer and others that just get too big like the clown loach.

As for scraping the glass, I as well do what Chris mentioned of only cleaning the front pane of glass. Occassionally, I will do the sides and back when I find a build up of GSA, but that's rare.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

NursePlaty said:


> *What I do is every snail I find, i use a bamboo stick and i shove them in the substrate to die. Or, I scoop them out with a net and i flush em.*


I tried something similar, but I have no proof that it works. I belive they come right out of it. There is no better proof that they are dead than feeling the squoosh/crunch feeling under your finger. It's almost like popping bubble wrap....love it.


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## chris oe (Feb 27, 2009)

"mystery" snails should all be Pomacea bridgesii or diffusa (I cannot get used to that name change) 

They have single genders, so there is a chance you could have a male and a female, but they lay their eggs above the water line in pink clusters, so if you check along the top of your tank (and your tank's lid) and remove any egg clusters you will get no babies. Even when an egg cluster hatches, it will be hard for you to get any survivors with gouramis in the tank. New baby brigs have thin little shells and tend to get eaten up quick by guppies. I'd imagine gouramis would figure out that they can just sit underneath the egg cluster on hatch day and wait for the next baby to hit the water. Yum. 

Plus they take about a month for the eggs to hatch, so you have a whole month to find the egg cluster. The clusters are dry and hard on the outside, so they're easy to remove, like picking a piece of styrofoam off something.


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