typical snail infestation or particularly bad?

[Jack L]

a couple came in on some jungle val out of a florida based seller, didn't see them. 6 months later and this!
this is at end of day after running from the light, in the AM, there are countless of all sizes


9331893319

[ericNH]

That's a lot of snails! I used to have snails like that. In fact I had more than that at one point. Mine were all Malaysian Trumpet snails - it looks like you have a mix of different types. Your whole tank looks like mine used to, except I had tons of algae and cyanobacter and yours doesn't. Good luck with the snails, though. I doubt you'll get rid of them short of nuking your system.

[smsimcik]

That's more than I would want to look at. They aren't really causing any harm. Just unsightly.
If you want to get rid of them, throw in about 4-5 assassin snails. In 3-4 months they will all be gone. Assassin snails reproduce very slowly. They will never overpopulate your tank like pond snails do.

[Akili]

If you do not have any invertebrates use Flubendazole they will gone.

[Pardal]

Yes it only takes one. as a matter of fact I have an old big sponge/divider that was dry for almost 6 months , I watched and added to my sump to increase biological filtration etc.
A couple of weeks later there was a lot of them, Apparently the eggs can go dormant for a long time and when the conditions are right "water" they come back.
I never use Flubendazole for it before.
What I normally do "If "I nuke it with cooper , like seachem cupramide, or Kordon cooper safe etc.
I do this usually moving the fish to another tank and doing a light PP on them to take advantage on the situation per say.
Only thing bad about nuking the tank is you kill your biological filter, so if you don't have another "disease free" sponge filter from another of your tanks to seed or place in your filter again.
You have to do massive WC's daily to avoid the ammonia and nitrite cycle mess with your fish in it.
The safe way IMO is to vacuum the hell out them with your WC , this way you can keep the numbers down.
You can also put some clown loaches they love to eat them. I don't like this approach too much because I kind of picky , clown are not from the same biotype, but at the end is your tank right?. and you can move them later to another tank of their own.

[Altum Nut]

I'm kind of leaning towards the Assassin snail suggestion which has worked for me in the past. I have also put a slice of cucumber or zucchini and that allows snails to congregate when feeding on and then suck them up during w/c's.
I agree with Julian that eggs must be everywhere. I had driftwood sitting out of water for months and when placed back in tank the snail eggs hatched which must have been dormant.

The best of luck Jack,
...Ralph

[DJW]

Wow Jack, that's an impressive collection you have there.

I have noticed that if you have a pair of Rams in the tank you don't see snails very often.

[discuspaul]

Jack, take heart - it can be done.

This past year, I had an infestation of snails in one of my smaller tanks. It wasn't quite as bad as your situation and they were all quite small snails, but there were many hundreds of them, which developed over months.

I started with killing some off almost every day, by squeezing them to death against the glass sides - I'd do at least a dozen or more each day.

I also tried attracting them & trapping them daily with some lettuce, etc. but that didn't work out very well.

I didn't want to add anything toxic to the tank, and neither did I want to get assassin snails.

It took me several months to get to the point where I could only count 1/2 dozen or so on the glass each day. (Of course, some snail eggs continued to be laid in the intervening weeks while I was trying to get rid of them.)

Today, it's down to seeing no more than 2-4 snails on the glass or plant leaves, or driftwood on any given day, and quite a few days I see NONE at all. It's a relief, and I'm glad I did it. They're not entirely gone, but I'm able to keep them under good control, and I'm happy with that.

[TexMoHoosier]

+1 on the assassin snails

I also noticed that when i had a snail infestation at the same time I had an algae infestation when I dosed Seachem Excel at double the normal dose for a week that the snails disappeared.

[Jack L]

That's a lot of snails! I used to have snails like that. In fact I had more than that at one point. Mine were all Malaysian Trumpet snails - it looks like you have a mix of different types. Your whole tank looks like mine used to, except I had tons of algae and cyanobacter and yours doesn't. Good luck with the snails, though. I doubt you'll get rid of them short of nuking your system.

Yeah it's a mix of a bunch of different kinds

[Jack L]

That's more than I would want to look at. They aren't really causing any harm. Just unsightly.
If you want to get rid of them, throw in about 4-5 assassin snails. In 3-4 months they will all be gone. Assassin snails reproduce very slowly. They will never overpopulate your tank like pond snails do.

They seem to feed on leftover BH and dying plants, but they collect in a Mass and look unsightly. Agree

I haven't found any assassin snails local. Guess I can order online though

[Jack L]

If you do not have any invertebrates use Flubendazole they will gone.

I have amano and ghost shrimp

[Jack L]

Yes it only takes one. as a matter of fact I have an old big sponge/divider that was dry for almost 6 months , I watched and added to my sump to increase biological filtration etc.
A couple of weeks later there was a lot of them, Apparently the eggs can go dormant for a long time and when the conditions are right "water" they come back.
I never use Flubendazole for it before.
What I normally do "If "I nuke it with cooper , like seachem cupramide, or Kordon cooper safe etc.
I do this usually moving the fish to another tank and doing a light PP on them to take advantage on the situation per say.
Only thing bad about nuking the tank is you kill your biological filter, so if you don't have another "disease free" sponge filter from another of your tanks to seed or place in your filter again.
You have to do massive WC's daily to avoid the ammonia and nitrite cycle mess with your fish in it.
The safe way IMO is to vacuum the hell out them with your WC , this way you can keep the numbers down.
You can also put some clown loaches they love to eat them. I don't like this approach too much because I kind of picky , clown are not from the same biotype, but at the end is your tank right?. and you can move them later to another tank of their own.

I thought about clown loaches but I have problems with loaches digging up my plants before

I have been siphoning a lot out like you said they actually lift off the sand and it doesn't pull the sand out but there are so many its insane

[Jack L]

I'm kind of leaning towards the Assassin snail suggestion which has worked for me in the past. I have also put a slice of cucumber or zucchini and that allows snails to congregate when feeding on and then suck them up during w/c's.
I agree with Julian that eggs must be everywhere. I had driftwood sitting out of water for months and when placed back in tank the snail eggs hatched which must have been dormant.

The best of luck Jack,
...Ralph

I did not know the eggs could survive if they dried out but yes there are a little egg sacks are everywhere on the tank walls on the leaves everywhere...

I will try the vegetable trick I think some of them are doing good by eating the old dead plants debris but the numbers of them are too much now

[Jack L]

Wow Jack, that's an impressive collection you have there.

I have noticed that if you have a pair of Rams in the tank you don't see snails very often.

Thanks :-)
You should see the variety in the sump!

[Jack L]

Jack, take heart - it can be done.

This past year, I had an infestation of snails in one of my smaller tanks. It wasn't quite as bad as your situation and they were all quite small snails, but there were many hundreds of them, which developed over months.

I started with killing some off almost every day, by squeezing them to death against the glass sides - I'd do at least a dozen or more each day.

I also tried attracting them & trapping them daily with some lettuce, etc. but that didn't work out very well.

I didn't want to add anything toxic to the tank, and neither did I want to get assassin snails.

It took me several months to get to the point where I could only count 1/2 dozen or so on the glass each day. (Of course, some snail eggs continued to be laid in the intervening weeks while I was trying to get rid of them.)

Today, it's down to seeing no more than 2-4 snails on the glass or plant leaves, or driftwood on any given day, and quite a few days I see NONE at all. It's a relief, and I'm glad I did it. They're not entirely gone, but I'm able to keep them under good control, and I'm happy with that.

So the lettuce trick did not work that well then ?
well I have taken a lot out like you were with siphon to bring some numbers down but then a rebound occurs

[Jack L]

was just reading on assassin snails, going to go that route.

if anyone knows of a sponsor that sells, please advise. thanks

[smsimcik]

I don't think any of the sponsors here sell assassin snails. I got mine from a seller on Aquabid.

[Jack L]

I don't think any of the sponsors here sell assassin snails. I got mine from a seller on Aquabid.
K, thanks

[Jack L]

been doing the lettuce for a few nights now. hit and miss on how many it nabs but the one morning the 6" piece of lettuce had at least 200 on it. there are just so many of them

and now i see snails make more detritus than shrimp! i lifted up the lettuce bait, and it rained down poo off of it!

[rickztahone]

been doing the lettuce for a few nights now. hit and miss on how many it nabs but the one morning the 6" piece of lettuce had at least 200 on it. there are just so many of them

and now i see snails make more detritus than shrimp! i lifted up the lettuce bait, and it rained down poo off of it!

Yeah, those little suckers definitely produce. Keep doing the lettuce trick and you will reduce the numbers significantly.

[Tshethar]

been doing the lettuce for a few nights now. hit and miss on how many it nabs but the one morning the 6" piece of lettuce had at least 200 on it. there are just so many of them

and now i see snails make more detritus than shrimp! i lifted up the lettuce bait, and it rained down poo off of it!

Yeah, the snails can be bad. I once got overwhelmed with pond snails in a 120 gallon tank and despite how many I picked out by hand, there was no way to get rid of them all. I tried hand picking 2-3 times per day, but in that setup I had overflows and a sump with a difficult-to-access media chamber, and it was full of them. Besides the mess they made, when they started getting lodged in the pump I was through messing around. But I was also anxious about my fish. So...

Not wanting to kill my relatively new, relatively sensitive Tanganyikans, I emailed Seachem about using Cupramine. Here's what they told me:

"Thanks for the email . Copper treatment is known to be an effective method for eradicating snails. Because of the copper complex we use in Cupramine, it allows for it to be effective, yet less harsh on the fish. Be sure to remove chemical filtration (especially carbon) during the treatment and since you are trying to eradicate snails, you can very gradually increase the copper level until you see the snails begin to die off. Do not exceed 0.25mg/L concentration in freshwater. The Java Moss may not tolerate the copper as well, but it is worth a try. Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Tech Support 10201"

I was a little worried both about exposing my fish to copper but also to possible ammonia spikes, etc, from a massive die-off of snails, so what I did was hand-pick all the snails I could and then started with the very minimal dose as suggested. I think it may have been about half of what is normally a therapeutic concentration for killing pathogens. Honestly, it couldn't have worked better. Snails started showing up dead on the bottom of the tank and the sump each day over a few days, and I picked or siphoned them up, but it definitely wasn't a "nuclear" moment. I'm not even sure if I did water changes--this was pre-discus keeping days--and since it's not an anti-biotic I don't think the biological filter suffered in the slightest. Fish as well as plants were fine.

Others might have experiences to add about copper with discus, but again, you can use very little to start seeing effects in the snail population as recommended above.

Maybe you won't get to this point, but food for thought if you do.

[navarro1950]

I also have snails but they are the little brown ones. They started out in the refugium when I added the wisteria plants. They seem to have crawled up the overflow pipes into the overflow box and that's where I catch most of them. Every now and then one or make their way into the tank and I fine their empty shells on the bottom after the clown loaches have made a meal of them. I've tried keeping nerite snails but the loaches ate them to, so think about the loaches they work pretty good.

[Jack L]

the sheer quantity of snails is now staggering.

assassins in q tank

[Jack L]

I also have snails but they are the little brown ones. They started out in the refugium when I added the wisteria plants. They seem to have crawled up the overflow pipes into the overflow box and that's where I catch most of them. Every now and then one or make their way into the tank and I fine their empty shells on the bottom after the clown loaches have made a meal of them. I've tried keeping nerite snails but the loaches ate them to, so think about the loaches they work pretty good.

what type of loach?

[Jack L]

Yeah, the snails can be bad. I once got overwhelmed with pond snails in a 120 gallon tank and despite how many I picked out by hand, there was no way to get rid of them all. I tried hand picking 2-3 times per day, but in that setup I had overflows and a sump with a difficult-to-access media chamber, and it was full of them. Besides the mess they made, when they started getting lodged in the pump I was through messing around. But I was also anxious about my fish. So...

Not wanting to kill my relatively new, relatively sensitive Tanganyikans, I emailed Seachem about using Cupramine. Here's what they told me:

"Thanks for the email . Copper treatment is known to be an effective method for eradicating snails. Because of the copper complex we use in Cupramine, it allows for it to be effective, yet less harsh on the fish. Be sure to remove chemical filtration (especially carbon) during the treatment and since you are trying to eradicate snails, you can very gradually increase the copper level until you see the snails begin to die off. Do not exceed 0.25mg/L concentration in freshwater. The Java Moss may not tolerate the copper as well, but it is worth a try. Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Tech Support 10201"

I was a little worried both about exposing my fish to copper but also to possible ammonia spikes, etc, from a massive die-off of snails, so what I did was hand-pick all the snails I could and then started with the very minimal dose as suggested. I think it may have been about half of what is normally a therapeutic concentration for killing pathogens. Honestly, it couldn't have worked better. Snails started showing up dead on the bottom of the tank and the sump each day over a few days, and I picked or siphoned them up, but it definitely wasn't a "nuclear" moment. I'm not even sure if I did water changes--this was pre-discus keeping days--and since it's not an anti-biotic I don't think the biological filter suffered in the slightest. Fish as well as plants were fine.

Others might have experiences to add about copper with discus, but again, you can use very little to start seeing effects in the snail population as recommended above.

Maybe you won't get to this point, but food for thought if you do.

thanks, i'll look it up. i don't want to off my shrimp though

[Tshethar]

Yeah, you would want to temporarily relocate any inverts you wanted to keep, and then maybe add some carbon after WCs before reintroducing...

[rickztahone]

Yeah, you would want to temporarily relocate any inverts you wanted to keep, and then maybe add some carbon after WCs before reintroducing...

Copper is known to linger. I would honestly avoid the Copper route if you plan on reintroducing the shrimp.

[Tshethar]

Copper is known to linger. I would honestly avoid the Copper route if you plan on reintroducing the shrimp.

I remember learning that, too, back when people used Mardal's CopperSafe as the preferred source. However, if you look at the Seachem site, they claim that it is removable with carbon, as well as Cuprisorb. I'm not well-versed in chemistry by any means--but according to their materials it has to do with the form or delivery of the Cu--ionic. One note: it instructs users to avoid reducing agents such as dechlorinators during treatment.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Cupramine.html

[Jack L]

ya'll the qtank is filling with empty pest snail shells!!!!!

so the assassins seem to have gone straight to work.

optimistic....

[rickztahone]

ya'll the qtank is filling with empty pest snail shells!!!!!

so the assassins seem to have gone straight to work.

optimistic....

Let us stay optimistic for you then :)

Good luck bud

[Tshethar]

Let us stay optimistic for you then :)

Good luck bud

+1 :)

[ericNH]

ya'll the qtank is filling with empty pest snail shells!!!!!

so the assassins seem to have gone straight to work.

optimistic....

Excellent! Glad to hear it. How many assassins did you get?

[Jack L]

12
but they sent 13

[Jack L]

update on this

the dozen assassins seem to still be chipping away at pest population in display tank. they are there but its no longer like a zombie apocalypse anymore

i put 2 in the sump, there are still a lot of pests in the sump, but now there is a growing swirl of empty shells in there : )

[kiwdahc]

2 yo-yo loaches would wipe that out in about a week.

[Heartbreaker]

...One note: it instructs users to avoid reducing agents such as dechlorinators during treatment.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Cupramine.html

So wait... If you can't use dechlorinators how do you make water changes during treatment?? Thank God I saw this.. I am actually treating my tank right now with Cupramine and started a 25% water change in which I always use SeaChem Prime.

[Simplejustin]

Dwarf puffers are magical when it comes
To snails

[Akili]

So wait... If you can't use dechlorinators how do you make water changes during treatment?? Thank God I saw this.. I am actually treating my tank right now with Cupramine and started a 25% water change in which I always use SeaChem Prime.You do water changes with aged water.

[Jack L]

Dwarf puffers are magical when it comes
To snails

not a fan of puffers in a Discus tank.

[Jack L]

2 yo-yo loaches would wipe that out in about a week.

do yo-yo loaches disturb plants as do some other loaches?

[Ryan925]

Assassins work wonders. I had. A large snail outbreak although not as bad as your. I could walk by the tank and every time pick out 4 or 5 snails. I put 3 assassins in the tank and they eventually got rid of them all.

Only thing is my assassins then started to breed like crazy. I slowly removed them and took them to lfs