Will snail infestations raise ammonia?

[lmhicks101]

So I’ve looked into it and it seems that if you have a high enough snail infestation it could. I have probably 200 ramshorn and bladder snails in my 29 gallon and recently the ammonia spiked up again. Now this can be attributed to a mass decay of plants recently but I’m curious if the snails would cause it too? 
 

And yes I know to get that many snails I had to be over feeding them which would also attribute to the ammonia but that was stopped a month ago and these are all left overs from eggs layed at that time and recently hatched witching the last 1-2 weeks. 

[Guppysnail]

Yes it will. They add bioload just like fish. Overstocking them be it intentionally or unintentionally is not different than overstocking fish. Add an extra airstone as they consume oxygen from the water as well. 

[lmhicks101]

Looks like its assassin snail time. I don't mind Ramshorn and I like bladders for getting into the tiny crevasses and also crashing a few and leaving them for snacks for my Kuhlis. The question is, how effective would just one assassin snail be at keeping them in check but not wiping them out?  

[Torrey]

One assassin snail in my 10 gallon fry grow out tank has definitely reduced the number of snails over the course of 2 months,  and definitely hasn't wiped them out. 

I tend to move my assassin snail between tanks to keep snails in check. 

[JettsPapa]

I find it difficult to believe that the snails could cause an ammonia problem.  Why wouldn't the beneficial bacteria colony be able to increase as fast as the snails?

[lmhicks101]

@JettsPapa snails are messy and they went from maybe 20-40 snails to over 200 pretty quick plus a huge for off of plants which the rams then devoured. I was thinking it would be like having an over populated tank. 

[Guppysnail]

If you had a big plant die off and no longer have the plants consuming it that would definitely be a factor. Can you vac them out or manually remove them to take to an lfs or throw in a tote with a sponge filter so it’s not affecting your fish?

[lmhicks101]

@Guppysnail  actually going through and collecting the best specimens this week and putting them in a 10 gallon so they can breed then getting a couple assassin snails for the main as a reset button on the snail plague.
 

Gotta evacuate the essential personnel before dropping nukes in the zombie infected city. 

[gardenman]

Snails eat, poop, and breathe, so yep, they'll raise the ammonia level in a tank. 

[Gator]

@lmhicks101; Six Clown loaches, Yoyo loaches, or Kuhli loaches will rid your tank of snails and their eggs. I don't have any snails in any of my heavily planted tanks and I don't want them, snails introduce parasites to the aquarium. If I get algae, I have Oto's.

About 10 years ago a Fisheries biologist friend told me about placing 9 tablespoons of Alum, available in the spice aisle of any grocery store, in a 5 G bucket and adding 3 G of water, stir it up and put the lid on it to prevent evaporation. Since then, whenever I've bought a plant from my LFS, I remove the lid, drop the plant, pot and all into the Alum bath and let it soak for 3 hours. Living snails die just as soon as they go into the Alum bath, but it takes 3 hours for the Alum to penetrate the egg masses to kill the eggs, and the Alum bath also kills any parasites that may be hitching a ride on the plants. Rinse the plants off very well in running water before placing them in your tank. This Alum bath has been a win-win for me and my tanks.

Other than buying Loaches to eat the snails and their eggs, getting rid of snails in an established aquarium system can be a long, drawn-out process that will eventually mean moving fish to other tanks, throwing the plants away since the snails on them will infest any tank you put them in unless you give them an Alum bath first. Then unplug your heater and filter, then empty any water that's in the filter, remove the bio-filter and set it aside. Remove the water and put the gravel in sheet pans and allow everything to dry out for about a month. All of this means that you'll need to re-cycle your tank from scratch, but it's well worth it to keep snails and parasites out of your tank. 

 

[Chris]

FWIW, I've never experienced any ammonia spikes that I connected with snails.

Yes, snails produce waste, but most people aren't feeding their "pest" snails specifically anyway - they're just eating algae, bacteria, and left over food in the tank. So, yes, the algae and bacteria that they ate will contribute to ammonia/dissolved waste a bit, but I can't imagine it's by very much. I'd only expect it to be a problem in the absolute worst of infestations, and in those situations, I'd completely expect there to be a husbandry and/or feeding problem that's a much bigger problem than the snails themselves.

[lmhicks101]

@Gator I have 12 Kuhlis in the 29 and they only eat the snails I crush and maybe their eggs sometimes. Over te last 3 weeks I’ve been going through my tank and crushing every bladder snail I see to the point that I would see about 100 at any given time at first and now maybe 10 out in the open. I decided to let them build back up as my Kuhlis absolute love eating the crushed ones. The problem is the ramshorns. I actually like them. As for the Alum, I’ll have to try that. Thank you. 
 

@ChrisThe issues mainly came from my tank not getting any food for 2 weeks due to the auto feeder messing up while I was away for work. This caused all the nitrates to plummet. I had a crap ton of anacharis, spiralis Crypt, and a few other plants that started dieing back and the rams went to town and bred like crazy so I went from like 50 rams in a 29 gallon to a plague of them. 
 

I wonder if there’s a formula out there for snails to fish ratio of waste. Mysteries are like goldfish from my understanding and make a lot of waste. How many rams and bladders = 1 cardinal tetra in waste. 
 

if 3 rams = 1 cardinal and I have 200+ Rams in a 29 gallon then that’s a lot. 

[Chris]

On 12/18/2021 at 12:50 PM, lmhicks101 said:

@Gator I have 12 Kuhlis in the 29 and they only eat the snails I crush and maybe their eggs sometimes. Over te last 3 weeks I’ve been going through my tank and crushing every bladder snail I see to the point that I would see about 100 at any given time at first and now maybe 10 out in the open. I decided to let them build back up as my Kuhlis absolute love eating the crushed ones. The problem is the ramshorns. I actually like them. As for the Alum, I’ll have to try that. Thank you. 
 

@ChrisThe issues mainly came from my tank not getting any food for 2 weeks due to the auto feeder messing up while I was away for work. This caused all the nitrates to plummet. I had a crap ton of anacharis, spiralis Crypt, and a few other plants that started dieing back and the rams went to town and bred like crazy so I went from like 50 rams in a 29 gallon to a plague of them. 
 

I wonder if there’s a formula out there for snails to fish ratio of waste. Mysteries are like goldfish from my understanding and make a lot of waste. How many rams and bladders = 1 cardinal tetra in waste. 
 

if 3 rams = 1 cardinal and I have 200+ Rams in a 29 gallon then that’s a lot. 

So, to my mind, this sounds like the ammonia you're experiencing is really from the plant die-off and the biological filter not having the plants there to support it anymore, not necessarily from the snails. If anything, they're helping break all that plant matter down faster.

If you siphon out all the dead plant matter you can, and start manually removing a few snails here and there, I'd expect to see things go back to normal pretty quickly. I think the snails are a symptom of the plant die-off and feeder malfunction, not the root cause of your issue.

[Guppysnail]

On 12/18/2021 at 12:50 PM, lmhicks101 said:

Over te last 3 weeks I’ve been going through my tank and crushing every bladder snail I see

If you are crushing a lot of them into the tank the loaches may not be eating all of them quick enough and this will also contribute to your ammonia. I encourage you Toto simply remove them until your snail and ammonia problem are corrected along with feeding adjustments you have already made it should correct quickly.  Al so those crushed snails the loachesdont get to quick enough the snails will perpetuating your issue. 

[lmhicks101]

@Chris I agree about the plants. This was just a thought provoking question. I was mainly curious if any had ever noticed any spikes in ammonia when they had a spike in a snail population.
 

If I was more conservative and said 4 snails to 1 cardinal and I have 200 of them then that’s 50 cardinals in my 29 gallon on top of my existing fish. If I told you I had a spike in ammonia after adding 50 cardinals you would say well there’s your problem. Just something interesting to think about as most people just don’t consider them in the bio load equation. Also which causes more ammonia? Decaying food and plants or decaying snail waist?

 

@GuppysnailI take most out. If I crush 20 bladders I leave 4-5 in

Edited December 18, 2021 by lmhicks101