WTF... lots of baby snails in my fish tank

[MeddyDuo]

A few days before Christmas I ordered some plants for my tank (never done that before) and I put them in and everything was fine. Then a couple weeks ago when I was cleaning it I found two snails, about the size of half a pea.
I just noticed today there are like 25 little tiny snails... what am I supposed to do?

 

[talyn00]

let them grow and then cook em.

 

[MeddyDuo]

Is there any way to get rid of them for good? I don't want to keep picking them out and throwing them away, and having more keep coming.

 

[her209]

Loaches eat snails I believe.

 

[MeddyDuo]

Originally posted by: her209
Loaches eat snails I believe.

I only have one goldfish (really big) and I don't want to add any more.


EDIT: Although ever since I got the plants, my fish hasn't eaten his food so I stopped feeding it. I thought it might be eating the plants, but could it be eating the snails?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Snails are hermaphrodites and don't need other snails to reproduce. Sometimes a rise in water temp. will cause them to switch hit so to speak and voila' baby snails. About the only thing you can do is monitor the temp closely and remove the baby snails from the tank.

 

[irishScott]

Leave them in there. They eat pollutants and as long as your fish isn't eating them and they don't get out of control, there should be no problem.

 

[IGBT]

..don't they keep the tank clean??

 

[MeddyDuo]

Yeah but I don't want millions of snails all over my tank. If each snail 'gives birth' or whatever to 10 snails a week, that's going to get crowded really fast.
I'm emailing the site I bought them from and seeing what they have to say.

 

[Leros]

You can bait them. Put a piece of cucumber in the tank at night. In the morning it should be covered with snails, easily removed.

 

[MeddyDuo]

Originally posted by: Leros
You can bait them. Put a piece of cucumber in the tank at night. In the morning it should be covered with snails, easily removed.

Awesome, I'll have to try that. How big of a piece?

 

[randay]

nuke em... nuke the bastards!

 

[MulLa]

Never heard of the cucumber idea but sounds interesting. I have the occasional snail here and there which I normally squish and throw back in the tank, fish will make good work of the body :evil: They usually crowd around in my canister filter which I clean out every quarter. Then again I don't have major outbreaks within the tank itself.

I have a tropical tank (higher temp) than goldfish tanks which might be why my snail issue is more under control??

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Originally posted by: MulLa
Never heard of the cucumber idea but sounds interesting. I have the occasional snail here and there which I normally squish and throw back in the tank, fish will make good work of the body :evil: They usually crowd around in my canister filter which I clean out every quarter. Then again I don't have major outbreaks within the tank itself.

I have a tropical tank (higher temp) than goldfish tanks which might be why my snail issue is more under control??

I think it's more of a matter of a sudden rise in temperature rather than the average temp. Large tanks tend to be more stable as in 40+ gallons.

 

[MeddyDuo]

I don't know, I bought a big snail from WalMart like a year ago and then it crawled out of the tank and died after a month or so, but it never had babies. The plants were the only thing I added to the tank since then, so they had to be what carried the snails.

 

[Born2bwire]

Switch to salt water fish.

 

[MeddyDuo]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Switch to salt water fish.

I don't want any more fish, I'm just keeping this one until it dies (I've had it for like 5-9 years so far).

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

Same thing happened to my dad's tank, except we never introduced any live plants or anything. They just came in one day and now they've over taken it.

 

[randay]

teach the algae to fight back. or just buy snail eating algae.

 

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: MeddyDuo
Yeah but I don't want millions of snails all over my tank. If each snail 'gives birth' or whatever to 10 snails a week, that's going to get crowded really fast.
I'm emailing the site I bought them from and seeing what they have to say.

..dang. that's a lot of citizens.

 

[gsethi]

ebay (the snails) ?

 

[drinkmorejava]

You can get stuff from your pet store that's supposed to get rid of them without hurting the fish. I'd try the cucumber idea first though; having a few around isn't a bad thing.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: MeddyDuo

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Switch to salt water fish.

I don't want any more fish, I'm just keeping this one until it dies (I've had it for like 5-9 years so far).

Well this way you solve two problems then.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: MeddyDuo

Originally posted by: Born2bwire
Switch to salt water fish.

I don't want any more fish, I'm just keeping this one until it dies (I've had it for like 5-9 years so far).

Well this way you solve two problems then.

 

[XZeroII]

Use duct tape. You can fix any problem with duct tape. If you don't think duct tape will help with this situation, then you just haven't given it enough though.