Pest snail problems

[FoughtWand]

Hey everyone, I am having a huge pest snail problem and can’t figure out what to do. I did get a few assassin snails but what else’s can I do to remove them all? It is a 55 gallon tank and II also attached my water quality as well.

Edited December 26, 2021 by FoughtWand

[Gideyon]

Snail traps.  There's one I've seen that doesn't run the risk of trapping fish.  The snails follow the bait onto a tray.  Every day just lift the tray and dispose of the snails, and repeat.

I've never had to use it.  But that seemed to be the best method if you have fish in the tank.

If you don't have fish, just starve the tank. 

[Guppysnail]

As mentioned snail traps are good for the ones that are visible currently. If you have enough that you feel they are overpopulated there are at least 25 egg sacs containing about 10 eggs each plus 100+ you cannot see yet. Removing the adults temporarily relieves the issue however allowing more food for the smaller ones to grow and reproduce. They only reproduce to the availability of food. 
clean your substrate up by siphon vacuum and cut way back on feeding and trim up dying growth on plants in addition to snail traps and your problem will resolve in a few weeks. I keep them in all my tanks as indicators of overfeeding as i am a heavy-feeder. In the short term they are eating the decaying matter that will foul your water quicker than the waste they are producing. Your nitrate seem high to me indicating overfeeding and/or excess decaying matter in your tank. Best of luck i hope this helps

[Gideyon]

On 12/26/2021 at 12:39 PM, Guppysnail said:

there are at least 25 egg sacs containing about 10 eggs each plus 100+ you cannot see yet.

This gives me the heebie jeebies 

[Jennifer V]

@FoughtWand you can also try your local fish clubs or Facebook groups and see if anyone wants them to feed to their fish. I have hungry puffers and am always looking for more snails. That way you know they're leaving your tank for a good cause rather than having to euthanize them and throw them away. 

[Streetwise]

I like algae, and I like snails.

If I want to grow less algae, and fewer snails, I will reduce nutrients, and decrease lighting.

Some inhabitants eat algae, and some eat snails, which means growing algae, and breeding snails. 🙂

[Odd Duck]

I would start by cutting back your feeding at least 25%.  Remove snails by hand or by traps as much as possible.  If you keep having over population of snails after 3-4 weeks, then cut back feeding by another 25%.

Snails can be your friend, but excessive snails can have a significant bioload.  Cutting back feeding helps reduce the population and also reduces your bioload quickly.  Your nitrates should drop over time.  If they don’t, that could be another indicator you are potentially still overfeeding.

[Gator]

@FoughtWand; You don't mention anything in your original post that you're overfeeding your tank, so I don't know where that's coming from. Some people like @Streetwise love snails to control algae and I don't know why, different strokes for different folks. There are other ways to control algae, but snails do introduce parasites to an aquarium that may not have had parasites in it to begin with. There are several ways to rid your aquarium of snails or make conditions less favorable for their development and save yourself a bundle on fish meds.  

You don't mention what type(s) of fish you have in your tank, but I'm going to make some suggestions in a few. Your pH is low enough for blackwater fish, but your hardness is 300, way too high, snails need and like hard water that is high in Calcium Carbonate for the development of their shells.  You can lower the hardness by first doing a 25% water change each week and replacing it with RO/DI water, before long, your water will be 100% RO/DI water without stressing your fish by doing massive water changes. At the same time, you can also lower the hardness by putting Fluval Peat pellets in a fine-mesh bag and placing it in your filter. If you're using a canister filter, place the bagged Peat pellets in one of the media trays between whatever bio-filtration you're using, and if you're using a HOB filter, place the bagged Peat pellets on the intake side, but before the bio-filter. I'm not a scientist, so I don't know how or why it happens, but peat seems to enhance the bio-filtration, anybody's guess is as good as mine.

You can also place tree limbs in your tank to soften and darken the water, but don't use just any tree limb. I did an on-line search several months ago to find out what tree limbs I can use in my tanks that are safe for our fish. It turns out that I can use several different types of tree limbs but warns against using soft woods like Pine or Spruce as they are toxic to our fish. Oak and Sycamore are common to this area and an Oak tree grows outside my back door, so I chose Oak.

Now, the fish, and these are great fish for eating snails and their eggs. I had a snail infestation about 15 years ago when my LFS started selling Clown loaches about 3 inches long, so I bought 6 of them. I placed them in a 29 G tank and sat down on the opposite side of my living room from the tank. I had just opened a book on aquarium fish to learn about Clown loaches when I heard a continuous tick-tick-tick sound coming from my tank. Thinking that something was happening to my filter, I got up to take a look and I was surprised to see that two of the Loaches had latched onto snails with their mouths and were using the spikes in their jaws to break open the snail shells to get at the snails, pretty cool! Other Loaches were swimming up and down on plant leaves, obviously looking for snail eggs. After adding the Clown loaches, each time I vacuumed the gravel, I was removing more and more broken snail shells until eventually, I didn't have any more snails, so I started feeding them chopped up pieces of earthworms, Yoyo loaches also love snails.

 Eventually the Clown loaches grew to 8 inches long, so I had to find new homes for them, but Yoyo loaches only grow to 4 inches long. Good luck.

 

 

[Streetwise]

@Gator, I only have bladder snails and ramshorn snails. They clean the glass and plant leaves for me. I recently moved my Yo-yo loach, and I picked the tank with the most snails, aka snacks!

[AndEEss]

On 12/27/2021 at 2:02 PM, Streetwise said:

@Gator, I only have bladder snails and ramshorn snails. They clean the glass and plant leaves for me. I recently moved my Yo-yo loach, and I picked the tank with the most snails, aka snacks!

I had a bunch of Jungle Val in a 55 gallon plastic Tupperware box for about a month. A few bladder snails or egg sacks must have hitched a ride, and then started breeding when I added a frozen gulf shrimp to the water as an ammonia source to get some BB going on a filter while out of town. Hundreds of them in there, maybe thousands.

Transplanted the Val into my new 75g tank, added the cycled filter and then my three juveline yoyos and some mid-sized Japanese Trapdoor Snails. Before I added the yoyo loaches, I'd estimate there were dozens if not hundreds of bladder snails. Now, a week later, there appears to be none.