Snail feeding question

[Katherine]

We just got some mystery snails last weekend and I know the importance of feeding them their own food, not just algae and what the fish miss. My question is how do you do this without giving bladder snails an all you can eat buffet? Or will I basically need to give up on controlling them by controlling the amount of available food and just remove a bunch periodically?

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

The simple answer @Katherine, sadly you really can't. So yes, controlling food and more likely removing excess snails is in your future. Unless someone here has come up with something I haven't heard of before!

[Cinnebuns]

You just described my worst nightmare. I keep 4 different types of snails and 3 in the same tank. One of my biggest fears is getting pond or bladder snails because of this reason. I'm sorry I can't think of a solution for you short of putting the mystery snails in a different tank or starting new. 

I do know there are some ways to trap pest snails to thin the population. You can simply put down a piece of cucumber and pick up what gathers around it. There's also ways of making a trap out of a water bottle. I tried to find a video to show how to make it but I couldn't find anything. It's 4am and I'm too tired to words for describing it. Maybe I can try tomorrow or someone else knows of a video. 

[Cinnebuns]

This isn't what I was describing but this seems legit too. 

 

[PineSong]

I made a snail trap out of a glass spice bottle that has holes in the plastic lid sized for things like red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese to come out of. Mystery snails cannot get into it, but small pest snails and baby ramshorns can. I put some shrimp food or algae wafer in the bottle, leave it over night, remove it in the AM and relocate the snails to a tank where I am not feeding mystery snails.

[Katherine]

On 5/29/2022 at 6:53 PM, PineSong said:

I made a snail trap out of a glass spice bottle that has holes in the plastic lid sized for things like red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese to come out of. Mystery snails cannot get into it, but small pest snails and baby ramshorns can. I put some shrimp food or algae wafer in the bottle, leave it over night, remove it in the AM and relocate the snails to a tank where I am not feeding mystery snails.

That is a great idea. I think I threw one of those out this week. 🤦‍♀️ I'm sure I'll have another empty soon enough. I'm not actually overpopulated yet, just trying to plan ahead.

[PineSong]

I got the idea from a video but was too lazy to go find the video and post the link!

[Katherine]

On 5/29/2022 at 6:57 PM, PineSong said:

I got the idea from a video but was too lazy to go find the video and post the link!

Haha! Not sure I need a whole video for that.