Do we have to quarantine snails?

[sweetpoison]

Hey guys ~
 

Do we have to quarantine snails after we buy them or can we just pop those puppies right in?

[Fish Folk]

There are different opinions. If you want to be absolutely safe, go ahead. I know some parasites may use snails as intermediary hosts.

There are risks with absolutely everything. I guess my approach is a bit less cautious. But I just unintentionally end up with Malaysian trumpet snails, rams-horn snails, and pond snails— it’s been a long while since I bought mystery snails or Nerite snails on purpose.

[Patrick_G]

I’m in the pop ‘em in camp. 

[Ken Burke]

@Guppysnail  you are the tie breaker. 😊

[Guppysnail]

I do not. I float them to temp or if they come in on moist towels I drip acclimate to temp. I do place them in a small container of tank water for just until they move around to ensure they made the transition and I can clearly see their foot and inspect the operculum.  Then in they go in the food dish near the food. They don’t carry diseases etc that cross species to fish through contact. But things can be carried in the water on the shell etc just like plants. I have never introduced anything By the method I use. I always hope the stint in the container rinses off whatever may be there. 

Ps Snails bought by me from big box stores is a minimum 8 week QT. I assume EVERYTHING bad is in their water from high turnover and if it touches their water it gets QT until everything needing a fish host to survive dies. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by Guppysnail

[CJs Aquatics]

I never have personally but I think the safest practice probably would be to do so honestly 

[Pepere]

I have Ramshorn snails that came with live plants I bought.  I did not dip the plants to prevent them as I was looking to seed the tank with bacteria from the plants.

attempts at manual removal of snails have only proven to wet my skin and consume time.  So, once a few became large enough to identify what snail they were I read up on them.

 

I did read that they can introduce parasitic skin flukes into the tank. From what I read though, these flukes die off in a relatively short time if there are no fish in the tank as life cycle can not continue without fish.  IIRC 8 weeks was long enough.

 

No idea about other snails

[Tedrock]

Again it depends.  Time and number of tanks you own would determine if you can wait to place them in your main tanks(s).  If safety is your desire then wait them out in a separate tank to find and hitch hikers.  They you can research the species and diseases they could care.  Otherwise throw caution to the wind and set them in their new home.

[sweetpoison]

@Guppysnail“They don’t carry diseases etc that cross species to fish through contact. But things can be carried in the water on the shell etc just like plants”

This is good to know! 
 

As far as I can remember we can’t really medicate with snails in the tank or am I mixing it up with shrimp?

On 6/22/2022 at 7:33 PM, Tedrock said:

Again it depends.  Time and number of tanks you own would determine if you can wait to place them in your main tanks(s).  If safety is your desire then wait them out in a separate tank to find and hitch hikers.  They you can research the species and diseases they could care.  Otherwise throw caution to the wind and set them in their new home.

One time I had an infestation of snails everywhere ~ little tiny ones all over my beautiful discus tank I don’t know how that happened! Seems like you only need one it’s like a cockroach😩 freaked me out!

And they were ugly too

[Guppysnail]

@sweetpoison it’s even harder to medicate with snails. While shrimp can tolerate things like no planaria and many fluke/ parasite meds snails cannot. Their body tissue makeup to closely resembles flatworm etc and those meds hurt them if not outright kill them in some cases. 
 

“pest” snails reproduce without a partner. So yes it literally takes only ones. I actually keep gold bladder snails on purpose 😁

[Misa]

I had a bad experience recently, added a some Maylasian trumpet snails to 2 betta tanks and the next morning both bettas were in distress. The snails were shipped in a bag of water, I placed them in a small bowl and changed the water several times over 24 hours before adding them to the tanks (by hand so no water was added with them). I can't say for sure if the snails were to blame but I'll be QT from now on, just to be safe

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

It’s my understanding that snails can’t get ick but they can get other things.

They don’t do well in water that has fish meds or salt; some meds are fatal to them.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea