How To Get Rid Of Snails?

[derpers1]

small snails which I did not buy. Do they help or hurt the tank. and if they hurt, how do I get rid of them

[Palue]

Snails, well i have battled these little critters for a while now. If you have live plants that is where they came from. They are not easy next to impossible to get rid of. They will not hurt the tank but in my opinion are a real eye sore to any tank.

What ever you do, do not use any medications for killing snails or you will have dead fish as well.

I also used a snail that eats other snails but that did not work.

I now have a Yo-Yo Loach and he is doing a great job of eating the snails but has a long way to go. I also crush any snails that are on the glass, I would say that I am down about 75% of what I had at the beginning of this year so I am making headway.

I did not want to keep the loach but will not get rid of him till I know all the snails are dead as I find they an eye sore.

So I would recommend the loach and crushing them.

Hope this helps

[DiscusFreakaZoid]

Bunch of clown loaches would do the trick plus i think there nice bottom schoolin fish

[lakerat37]

I second what the Freakazoid said. Clown loaches or Yoyo's are excellent for eliminating snails. This process make take a while, but it does work. Understand that loaches are very active eaters when food is introduced into the tank and will scare a Discus away from a nice meal. Introduce the loaches when they are young!!! Also, if you feed them well they will get large, so they will intimidate a docile or very young Discus everytime.

I had a nice, heavily planted, Discus tank (90gal) with several nice adults, and I also had 3 Clowns in with them. The loaches were introduced when they were very young and it worked out great!

HTH, Ken

[zamboniMan]

I've kept both yoyo loaches and clown loaches to get rid of snails. I can say without a doubt that I found the clowns to be much more effective. Get them small and your discus won't care. With clowns as with most loaches the more the better. They'll be one of your most active fish. I could spend hours watching clowns hunt snails.

[scottthomas]

This question comes up a lot. Loaches, especially clown loaches will certainly rid your aquarium of snails and quickly. I really like clown loacheas but many find that they are so active that they frighten the discus. Also, I would only keep them in groups, as like discus, they really only thrive when kept with others of their kind.

[Highsea]

assassin snail work very well and they didn't over run the tank overtime.

[zamboniMan]

This question comes up a lot. Loaches, especially clown loaches will certainly rid your aquarium of snails and quickly. I really like clown loacheas but many find that they are so active that they frighten the discus. Also, I would only keep them in groups, as like discus, they really only thrive when kept with others of their kind.

I find that getting them when they're small the discus get used to them but if you get them when they're big they frighten the discus. I think the discus don't mind them when they're small and then just don't notice that they're getting bigger.

[exv152]

Snails are not exactly harmless. I came across this interesting article about how they can carry flagelates like cryptobiasis, something which has really not been studied in the aquarium trade, but is an illness well known to many cichlid owners. After reading this article, I removed 95% of the snails in my planted discus tank.

http://www.nencki.gov.pl/pdf/ap/ap725.pdf

[zamboniMan]

Snails are not exactly harmless. I came across this interesting article about how they can carry flagelates like cryptobiasis, something which has really not been studied in the aquarium trade, but is an illness well known to many cichlid owners. After reading this article, I removed 95% of the snails in my planted discus tank.

http://www.nencki.gov.pl/pdf/ap/ap725.pdf


Proper maintenance is the key. If you keep up with your tanks it shouldn't be as much of a problem. Also UV sterilizers will kill these things as long as the flow through them is slow enough. Also these things are generally small enough to get caught in micron filters. If you periodically run a high flow micron filter on your tanks you'd be surprised how much less of a problem this is.

[exv152]

Proper maintenance is the key. If you keep up with your tanks it shouldn't be as much of a problem. Also UV sterilizers will kill these things as long as the flow through them is slow enough. Also these things are generally small enough to get caught in micron filters. If you periodically run a high flow micron filter your tanks you'd be surprised how much less of a problem this is.

Unfortunately, proper maintenance has nothing to do with cryptobia as snails can be carriers of these types of flagelates, and you can run uv filters 24/7 and the fish can still be infected. Once the fish get this, there's little to nothing that can be done given the nature of these types of disease. The worst part is it can come back again and again. It's made me a skeptic of the usefullness of snails in a planted tank.

[zamboniMan]

Unfortunately, proper maintenance has nothing to do with cryptobia as snails can be carriers of these types of flagelates, and you can run uv filters 24/7 and the fish can still be infected. Once the fish get this, there's little to nothing that can be done given the nature of these types of disease. The worst part is it can come back again and again. It's made me a skeptic of the usefullness of snails in a planted tank.

True UV filters won't catch everything. However due to the nature of flagellates, if you constantly change your water you will remove alot of them especially if its a fast siphon. Add good filtration (some will get caught in the filter) and you greatly reduce your chances also some of the other microorganisms on which they feed will get caught. Less there is for them to feed on (because you keep up with your tank) the less of an issue it is. I have been keeping chiclids for a number of years and have found in my personal experience that this makes a big difference.


Proper maintenance is the key. If you keep up with your tanks it shouldn't be as much of a problem. Also UV sterilizers will kill these things as long as the flow through them is slow enough. Also these things are generally small enough to get caught in micron filters. If you periodically run a high flow micron filter on your tanks you'd be surprised how much less of a problem this is.

Not trying to be snippy (if I come across this way sorry) but you might actually read everything before posting.

Josh

[exv152]

True UV filters won't catch everything. However due to the nature of flagellates, if you constantly change your water you will remove alot of them especially if its a fast siphon. Add good filtration (some will get caught in the filter) and you greatly reduce your chances also some of the other microorganisms on which they feed will get caught. Less there is for them to feed on (because you keep up with your tank) the less of an issue it is. I have been keeping chiclids for a number of years and have found in my personal experience that this makes a big difference.


I read your post but what you are referring to are hemoflagellates that have an indirect life cycle, but the gastrointestinal and ectoparasitic forms have direct life cycles, so water changes, filtration and proper population density can help reduce the chances of infection, but introducing natural carriers such as snails doesn't help the situation. In fact it greatly increases the chances of Spironucleus and Cryptobia infection.

[zamboniMan]

I read your post but what you are referring to are hemoflagellates that have an indirect life cycle, but the gastrointestinal and ectoparasitic forms have direct life cycles, so water changes, filtration and proper population density can help reduce the chances of infection, but introducing natural carriers such as snails doesn't help the situation. In fact it greatly increases the chances of Spironucleus and Cryptobia infection.

They still have to be present in the water column to some extent. Unless of course you think your discus are actually eating your snails?

[Palue]

Interesting about the clown loaches, i had to return mine as they would not leave the discus alone and there were tons of snails in the tank.

The yo-yo loach for me works better and never bothers the discus but what a huge stomach on this monster. It never bothers the worm holder either and catches the odd flake but mostly eats the snails.

Good luck to you...

[Wahter]

They still have to be present in the water column to some extent. Unless of course you think your discus are actually eating your snails?

I've seen discus eat snails, heck I've seen discus eat gravel! Also some snails are intermediate hosts to tapeworms too.




Walter

[zamboniMan]

Interesting about the clown loaches, i had to return mine as they would not leave the discus alone and there were tons of snails in the tank.

The yo-yo loach for me works better and never bothers the discus but what a huge stomach on this monster. It never bothers the worm holder either and catches the odd flake but mostly eats the snails.

Good luck to you...

I'm just not a fan of the yoyo's the ones I had weren't as good as the clowns at eating snails and they weren't as entertaining.

[Palue]

Well I do have to say they are not pretty to look at, they are pretty ugly characters. This one I have is a clown, he can be so funny to watch, I love when he comes out of his barrel and sleeps on his side by the driftwood. At first I thought he was dead but does this everyday.

The Clown Loaches are much more attractive to look at for sure. I just did not have luck with mine and so far this guy is behaving.