I don't hate pest snails and keep some but...

[Cinnebuns]

I kinda knew this would happen. About a month ago I plopped some plants into my tank without thinking. After putting them in I looked and found a bladder snail in the bucket I was using. I don't have pest snails, infact I have 5 tanks with ramshorn snails, but I don't want them in this specific tank because I am keeping mystery and nerite snails in there and I don't want them to get out competed. The tank is currently crashed so there is no animals in it so I can bomb it if I want. I have some questions:

1. IF I choose to keep these snails in this tank I could move the other snails to my 20. The question I have there is if the snails could co-exist with CPO crayfish because that has been the plan for bottom dwellers in that tank. I seem to think no. I also remember a recent post I think where @Guppysnail was questioning someone doing exactly that. I don't remember the specifics. I might reread that. 

2.  If I do murderize them how should I go about that?  The tank is not being fed so thats one tick in the minimize population category. It does have plants in it, will they eat them once starved?  I've heard no planaria as an option but I've also heard it doesn't work on all snails?  Options?

Edited September 8, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:27 PM, Pepere said:

Carbonated water once you remove all the life you care to save.

At least 6 cups per 10 gallons, no airstones.

 

has major advantage over copper treatments as it wont have residuals, and the plants will like it.

 

Is this the same as seltzer water I'm getting for algae too?

On 9/8/2022 at 3:27 PM, Pepere said:

Carbonated water once you remove all the life you care to save.

At least 6 cups per 10 gallons, no airstones.

 

has major advantage over copper treatments as it wont have residuals, and the plants will like it.

 

Also, no air stones include aeration from hob filter?

Another follow up..."all life I care about" include plants or just animal life?

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/8/2022 at 3:42 PM, Pepere said:

Yep same thing…

 

the point would be the same as reverse respiration exclude oxygen so oxygen dependent animals suffocate. Hence you dont want to add O2 with an air stone or surface agitation. 
 

preferably when dark so plants dont add O2.

Gotcha. Ty so much. 

[Guppysnail]

If you are putting a crayfish in those pest snails will make a lovely food source. If not yes seltzer is carbonated water and will work IF you only use pure seltzer. Diluting it in water you are not guaranteed to kill the eggs and what has gotten into hob filters etc. 

chemical bombs run the risk of leaving toxins that will harm future snails. 
 

So in short I would love to follow your crayfish journey if you choose that route. 

[Streetwise]

Bladder snails are small and mellow. They will clean glass and plants. The population should self-regulate based on grazing options. They are my favorite snails.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 9/8/2022 at 2:27 PM, Pepere said:

Carbonated water once you remove all the life you care to save.

At least 6 cups per 10 gallons, no airstones.

 

has major advantage over copper treatments as it wont have residuals, and the plants will like it.

 

Essentially what I unintentionally did when a co2 valve failed open overnight. Carbon dioxide rish water. It was very effective against everything in that life lesson

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/8/2022 at 7:10 PM, Streetwise said:

Bladder snails are small and mellow. They will clean glass and plants. The population should self-regulate based on grazing options. They are my favorite snails.

I agree but I also know many people have issues with their mystery snails dying with them out competing. I don't want that. I actually would happily welcome them into my 20 but all other tanks have other snails already dedicated to them. 

On 9/8/2022 at 6:42 PM, Pepere said:

yes, but conceivably following up with a repeat dosing once eggs would have hatched and prior to snails reaching sexual maturity could wipe out hatchlings before they lay new eggs.

Do you know the time period for this?  Maybe 2 weeks?  Idk

Also, just to clarify, all I do is pour the seltzer water in and black out the tank?  No wc after several hours or anything?

Edited September 9, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Cinnebuns]

@Pepere I did the seltzer thing yesterday. I added 4 liters in my 29 gallon tank. I turned off my hob filters for about 6 hours to avoid adding o2.  I turned the lights off and covered it all day. 

Today I realized that some of the plants I moved from my shrimp tank to this tank brought a shrimp with who survived the whole thing. Shrimp are much more sensitive than bladder snails so now I'm not sure if it worked or not. Tbh, I'm not entirely mad if it didn't because I have some plans if they stick around so it's whatever. It did help the algae. I might do a full RR for the algae later tho. 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Cinnebuns

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/10/2022 at 4:34 PM, Pepere said:

Well,  I am surprised.

 

I dosed my 29 gallon with 2 liters, months ago, and everything but the ostracods died off.  Detritus worms, snails, etc.

 

ostracods just shut type and survive on water clamped in their shells.

 

I still have Ostracods, but the fish keep them in check now….

I do plan to dose again in 1-2 weeks so we'll see. Who knows?  Maybe this shrimp is a super God or something lol. I looked it up and bladder snails hatch in 1 week and become sexually mature in 1 month so 1-4 weeks is my window for 2nd dose. 

Like I said, I kinda have an idea if it doesn't kill them so it's not a huge deal. A friend and I discussed it last night. He said he keeps mystery snails and bladder snails together as long as the bladder snail population is in check. One way I can do that is khuli loaches. They don't eat mystery snails but they do eat bladder snails. Tbh, I don't entirely hate the bladder snails aside from the threat to the mystery snails so that might be a good option. I do know the tanks i have ramshorn snails in are super clean so I see the benefit of pest snails. As @Streetwise says, embrace the ecosystem. As long as I can balance said ecosystem is the thing haha. 

[Cinnebuns]

On 9/10/2022 at 5:14 PM, Pepere said:

Then again, the shrimp may have surfaced to get some air.  Snails can do the same as well.  Worth sneaking a peak in the tank after maybe an hour and see…

 

 

That's a good point. Tbh, o2 aside, I'm amazed that shrimp survived that tank with how high the nitrite and nitrate is right now. Literally just thought of that factor too

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/10/2022 at 3:50 PM, Cinnebuns said:

That's a good point. Tbh, o2 aside, I'm amazed that shrimp survived that tank with how high the nitrite and nitrate is right now. Literally just thought of that factor too

Agreed

On 9/8/2022 at 6:12 PM, Cinnebuns said:

On 9/8/2022 at 4:42 PM, Pepere said:

yes, but conceivably following up with a repeat dosing once eggs would have hatched and prior to snails reaching sexual maturity could wipe out hatchlings before they lay new eggs.

Do you know the time period for this?  Maybe 2 weeks?  Idk

Also, just to clarify, all I do is pour the seltzer water in and black out the tank?  No wc after several hours or anything?

I usually "check" every afternoon when I find snails. Honestly, my OCD to remove them makes me check every few hours just to catch what I can.  More often then not you'll find then after lights out on the edge of the surface, especially when you first get them. You have way more experience with snail behavior than I do, but for the 2-3 times I've had them that was my method.  As for treating with RR and the method for doing that I don't know what the best method would be for a whole tank.  Generally I've seen people remove everything from the tank to treat it.  This one puts things into a slightly different situation, especially if you're talking something like MTS as opposed to bladder snails.

The usual thing is ~12 hours to treat and then no light during that time.  Doing that in a tank would definitely risk the cycle.  This just means make sure you're filtration, fish, etc. are elsewhere (all things I'm sure someone would do, but I just want to mention it for the sake of clarity).  I would honestly leave those things out of the tank for ~24-48 hours for the sake of a safety margin. I would run the tank on air or something else like a QT filter for that time being after treating with RR if you're talking about dosing the whole tank.

I'm interested to see how things end up with this.  I couldn't imagine buying ~30G of selzter water to treat the tank and I've started to get myself used to using bleach more for fighting algae thanks to the diffuser I'm using and it's love of the green brush stuff.

As a sidenote: In the other thread you'd mentioned about BBA vs. Staghorn and often when I write it out I put BBA / Staghorn because I know I have both but sometimes it's extremely hard to tell.  Someone a lot smarter than me explained to me they are forms of red algae.  Hopefully that helps narrow down things when you're searching how to fight it.