A zillion snails,and how to get rid of them

[mench]

recently I have noticed a mega lot of tiny snails on the glass of my 100gal semi planted upstairs tank...there is about 1in of sand on the bottom,a large hunk of wood and a few plants tied to the wood...the tank has been set up and running for over one yr with no problems...there are 5 discus ,maybe 4 bushy nose...all fish have been in the tank since it was set up,so nothing new in the tank.
So where did the nasty snails come from,and more important,how the heck do I get rid of them...the grandkids think they are cute and have been naming them..I would not mind a few I guess but we have way to many in there.
Thanks in advance for any info

mench

[jball1125]

Your best bet would be to add a loach. He will clean them up real nice.

[arapaimag]

Are they spiral shaped or round? It makes a difference in the ease of control or removal.

recently I have noticed a mega lot of tiny snails on the glass of my 100gal semi planted upstairs tank...there is about 1in of sand on the bottom,a large hunk of wood and a few plants tied to the wood...the tank has been set up and running for over one yr with no problems...there are 5 discus ,maybe 4 bushy nose...all fish have been in the tank since it was set up,so nothing new in the tank.
So where did the nasty snails come from,and more important,how the heck do I get rid of them...the grandkids think they are cute and have been naming them..I would not mind a few I guess but we have way to many in there.
Thanks in advance for any info
mench

[mench]

they look spiral
mench

[Yboat]

snails don't exploded in numbers unless something is wrong.

You most likly have a bunch of junk you need to vac out some where.

I use a slice of cucumber for removal. put it in the tank, turn off the lights, wait a couple hours, remove the slice. it should be covered in snails. Repeat.

[DonMD]

Ditto on the clown loach. They are very timid (at least mine is, and he's over 3 inches long now) and don't cause discus any problems. But they are death to snails.

[arapaimag]

they look spiral
mench

They might be malaysian livebearing snails (Melanoides tuberculata).

If they are they are almost impossible to get rid of.

You can control them as others have suggested with clown loaches etc. However I have thought tanks were Ok and the loaches and various other fish I have used have killed them off only to discover hundreds of them crawling on the gravel and glass at night when the tank lights are off in some of my tanks.

I have even stripped tanks and bleached them only to find some MLBS have survived and started the process over.

I have frozen them and find some survived up to a year later.

When they have babies they often float on the water and if a net or anything is used in the tank (your arm) they will stick to it and thus transfer to other tanks this way. The babies I am talking about are microscopic so you bearly notice them.

I have lots of fish that do eat them (But none wipe them out)

Clea helena the assassin snail works OK sometimes on ramshorn snails but has no effect on the MLBS. I have experimented in tanks placing 10 of each in a tank and checking 3 months later to find more than 25 MLBS to 1 Assassin.

I keep many species of fish where I do not want snails in their tanks like elephant nose, discus, zebra plecos etc. I find the MLBS an almost impossible foe to actually wipe out.

Removing all substrate and netting the adult snails as you see them will work eventually as there will be no adults to reproduce. At this point re introducing the gravel (after you have boiled it to kill any baby snails lurking it it) will work.

Best of luck getting rid of yours.

[Jayhawk]

great info! Thanks

[discusmurderer]

There is something called snailout , i think its a jungle product or i have used a jungle product and it killed all of the snails cause at the back it says it will be harmfull to crustaceans

[AngryBird]

Snail out kill snails but it will also kill shrimps if you have any in your planted tank. I believe snailout is copper sulphate concentrate and it will kill some plants that are sensitive to copper. I dont have snails now because I got rid of the tank that was attacked by snails. I tried everything for a year before I gave up. Dont use snail out if you have shrimps or plants with substrate. Best bet would be a good number of loach. I couldnt add loach in my tank because loaches eat shrimps and I had 500+ shrimp in my tank along with discus.

[Yboat]

It can also cuase other nastys to come out as you just had a major die off.

[mench]

Thanks to you all for the good info...I haven't seen any snails larger than about 1/8th in.I will start with the cucumber then a loach..I will keep you informed as to how I make out

mench

[arapaimag]

If you only see the babies it means the adults are in the gravel where the MLBS stay most of the time breeding.

Put the cucumber in but also a few sinking pellets just before lights out. Then come back when the room and tank is dark and look at the gravel to see if any are there or if the gravel is actually moving. They are compared to cockroaches by many fish club members.

[Yvonne]

This may sound cruel, however, I had a figure 8 puffer that ate my malaysian snails. Of course, not all of them, but I hardly saw any as long as he was in the tank. Obviously, a discus tank is not the ideal set up for a puffer but he lived for about 6 months. I also used him in my community tank and he took care of the snails there also. Puffers should be in brackish water ideally but the LFS had them in city water. Of course, anything to make a buck. Also, I was told that they were aggressive but he didn't seem to bother anybody. So maybe I was just lucky.

[arapaimag]

Good point.... and yes the figure 8 puffer is brackish and normally is too aggressive for discus you are lucky yours is not.

I use 3 different puffers for snail control. Like you said they can not kill them all but do keep them out of sight somewhat. I have found the most peaceful puffer to be the South American Colomesus asellus. That species is the only true freshwater puffer in its genus. I have it in a discus tank and it controls the MLBS well enough as to not see them but the tank is a fair size (Just over 800 gallons). I have also used a Tetraodon nigroviridis with good success with discus but like yours his temperament is very peaceful compared to most fish. He moves from tank to tank every month to reduce snail populations. This month he is in a 120 gallon with a Synodontus granulosus and a shoal of adult congo tetras Phenacogrammus interuptus. The T. nigroviridis is also a brackish puffer so I do move him into brackish water from time to time. The other puffer I use is a Tetraodon mbu ( A true fresh water puffer from Africa) but although they are mild mannered it would not be good to put them in with discus unless it was a very large tank.

Loaches do work and the best is the skunk loach Botia morleti but although it is small it is very aggressive and I find it not good for discus tanks as it will nip them. Several people use clown loaches (Cromobotia macracanthus or Botia macracanthus in older literature) as stated by others in this thread with good success in controlling the MLBS and eliminating ramshorns. I use 3 of them in my discus tank. However they can scare the discus at night when they are very active and the discus are trying to rest so the larger the tank the better.