Snail Explosion in my Fish tank

Hi

For the past 5 months i am struggling with snails in my aquarium. I strongly believe they might have entered through the plants i brought in. I did not wash the first plant properly eventhough i did give the rest a thourough wash. But now they are in. and their populaton is exploding. I tried all natural means of eradicating them, such as removing them physically during weekly cleaning process,cucumber - only 3 snails were on:-( and even took all the substrates out and cleaned thouroughly but still they are there and growing in numbers. They are only one type of snail, look as a spiral disc shape and maximum size is 3-4 mm in diameter (Please see the picture). But they give an unpleasant look to my aquarium especially when they crawl on the glass. Few pictures of them are given below. Could any one please tell me what type of snail are they and how to get rid of them? I don't think so the clown loach solution will work for me as mine is a small aquarium of 60 litres that may not be suitable for clown loach. So any suggestions/solutions which won't harm my fishes are very much appreciated.

Ta
Chan

The picture shows a mature fully grown snail.

Hi Chan
welcome to the forum

There are to things you can do. The chemical way or there is the natural way by clown loachs or assasin snails
i would go for the natural way first with the assasin snails then if that don,t work then opt for chemical which is copper sulphate based and kills them out right hope this helps

Dan

Hi Dan,

Thanks for ur reply. As u have susggested i feel the natural way is the one i should follow first. But,i am a bit hesitant to go with again another type of snail to solve the current snail problem. Assasin snails might also reproduce and i would prefer not to have a snail in my aquarium. At the same time, clown loaches will grow bigger for my tank size.

But how about other snail eating smaller loaches like YOYO loach and Zebra Loach which grow max. 4-5 inches only?

Ta

Chan

Hi Chan

I have also had lots of problems with snails,i tried the same things as you and i also have 2 clown loaches, for about 6 months. Which done eat the snails. The two Clown Loaches i had before them used to eat the snails like crazy and before long had no snails at all! but this time no joy.

I have tried something lately which is working but is a last resort for me. I have notice that about 90% of the snails tend to go on the glass at a certain time on the evening (i don't know if its the same for you?) When this happens i removed the big objects from my tank then squash all the snails i can against the glass, making sure that all the bits of shells are on the gravel. Then with a gravel cleaner i do a clean up and get rid of all the dead snails. I still have a few snails, but i find the snails don't have time to recover between water changes, so it shouldn't be to long before I'm snail free.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Paul

then squash all the snails i can against the glass, making sure that all the bits of shells are on the gravel. Then with a gravel cleaner i do a clean up

That's what I have been doing, so I'm glad i'm not the only one
I thought about sucking them out with a turkey baster

hi
i use assin snail they work really well,ive had them for 8 months and havnt seen any babies of them