mleibowi
02-14-2022, 12:22 PM
Hi all,
I noticed ramshorn snails in my sand substrate when I'm vacuum cleaning. They are quite small, almost translucent but my siphon isn't strong enough to aspirate them. I'm sure they were introduced to my tank with some live plants I acquired a few months ago. I'm not sure if they will cause problems down the line and whether I need to take steps to eradicate them either biologically or chemically? My biological routes would be to add loaches, but after searching the forum, loaches and discus don't get along well. There are dwarf chain loaches at my LFS which stay small (~2.5 inches or 5-6 cm) but I don't know if they are also "too active" and will stress discus. I was thinking about adding them and perhaps returning the LFS for store credit after they are done doing their job although they are quite expensive here ($10 each) and would probably need to get atleast 3 sice they are a shoaling fish. I'm not a fan of adding assassin snails as they would eventually become a pest as well. I've read that flubendazole kills snails. I'm not sure if I have many snails since they are small so I don't think they would cause a significant ammonia spike in a ~150 gal aquarium if I chemically kill them, but I don't know.
Would love to hear people's thoughts...
Thanks,
Mike
I noticed ramshorn snails in my sand substrate when I'm vacuum cleaning. They are quite small, almost translucent but my siphon isn't strong enough to aspirate them. I'm sure they were introduced to my tank with some live plants I acquired a few months ago. I'm not sure if they will cause problems down the line and whether I need to take steps to eradicate them either biologically or chemically? My biological routes would be to add loaches, but after searching the forum, loaches and discus don't get along well. There are dwarf chain loaches at my LFS which stay small (~2.5 inches or 5-6 cm) but I don't know if they are also "too active" and will stress discus. I was thinking about adding them and perhaps returning the LFS for store credit after they are done doing their job although they are quite expensive here ($10 each) and would probably need to get atleast 3 sice they are a shoaling fish. I'm not a fan of adding assassin snails as they would eventually become a pest as well. I've read that flubendazole kills snails. I'm not sure if I have many snails since they are small so I don't think they would cause a significant ammonia spike in a ~150 gal aquarium if I chemically kill them, but I don't know.
Would love to hear people's thoughts...
Thanks,
Mike