The Snail Invasion

[Lanky]

A few months back when i bought my pet gibbicep, the guy at the fish shop accidentally netted a snail and sent it off with me in a plastic bag. I thought 'score, something free!' and happily dropped it in my tank along with the gibbicep.

Now the population of snails is probably at about 500, and the little guys are everywhere and they just keep breeding. I'm just wondering if theyre likely to cause my tank any trouble, and if anyone has any tips on controlling snail populations. I try to catch them when i do a water change, but i never get enough to make any real affect on the population.

[bossteck]

Hi Lanky,

Control your feeding, over-feeding is one of the main causes of snail outbreak. My tank has snails too, but i keep them in check by watching my fishes eat, yes... watching them eat. The general rule of thumb is feed only enough food whihc your fishes can finish in 3-5 minutes (this includes food which has sunk to the bottom of the tank).

Of course, while doing this, continue to do manual removal, like what you're doing now.

Other options:

1. Medication - Personally, I do not like to add stuff to my tank, so medication is a no-no for me.

2. Get some fishes that eats snails, pufferfish horseface loach
Puffer - very effective, but once the snails are gone, you got to feed the little fella, and they are known fin nippers.

Horseface loach - less effective, but the way they sieve through the substrate is quite interesting.

If you do not enjoy either fishes, then it's not really a good option.

3. Snail traps, can get commercially available ones or diy.

[doppelbanddwarf]

I believe medication may not be such a good idea, especially with the huge number of snails involved here. Unless you can pick them all up after they die, 500 rotting snails is going to be a big big problem.

[alechim]

Puffer seems to be the perfect solution for me, else you can do what my colleague did. Fish out the snails 1 by 1.