JohnHuff
I know nothing.
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2012
- Messages
- 2,257
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- At my computer
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I knew that snails were a problem in tanks but I didn't think they would be that much of a problem until I got them. I think they came in with duckweed from my LFS, but I can't say with much certainty where they came from.
At first it was just a few and they weren't too bad, then they multiplied and became a major pain. Why did they have to multiply so much? They do have their pros which including scarfing down algae on the glass. I know they do that because I seen 'em do it. And they are good at scavenging. They can completely devour a dead fish in a day or so. Sometimes our fish die and disappear and it's good to know that the snails will deal with it instead of the body rotting out of sight.
As I told my son, snails are like kids. A couple of them are good around the house and to propagate your genes and all that but once you get about 50 of them it's time to call in the assassin snails.
Assassin snails. Great in theory but not that great in practice. It's like hiring assassins, I'm sure you've been there, done that.
Me: I'd like to hire you to off the president of Muldavia and his entire cabinet and all their relatives if possible.
Assassin: No problem.
Me: How are you going to do it?
Assassin: Why do you need to know?
Me: I just need to know, tell me.
Assassin: I'm going to eat them.
Me: Won't that take a long time?
So you can see the problem of death by ingestion. Seriously, I thought the assassin snails were going to just like kill the snails and move on to the next one, not laboriously eat them one by one.
Next are the numbers you need. They suggest 5 per 15 gallons. That would be 18 assassin snails for my 55g tank. That's almost just as bad as my original snail problem! It's like:
Me: I'd like to adopt some cats to get rid of my mice problem.
LPS: How many mice are we talking about?
Me: I think we have 2 mice.
LPS: You'll need 7 cats for that.
I ended up buying 3 assassin snails for each tank. They appear to be doing their work. They'll latch onto a snail, eat it, then burrow into the sand to digest it. It looks like they're "assassinating" snails at one per day. At this rate my tanks should be snail free in 2450 days. I think the emphasis on these guys should be snails and not assassination as in "I'm going to buy some assassin SNAILS."
So I'm doing what else the internet has suggested:
1) Put a piece of food into the tank. Once the snails have latched on to it, discard the food and the snails.
2) Crush them and let your fish snack on the free food. Surprisingly this works well, especially with the larger snails. My swordtails have even stopped eating fish food and seem to be dining exclusively on crushed snails. Of course, at that point they are no longer snails, they're escargot.
So the moral of my story is to make sure your plants are snail free when you put them in the tank because once you have snails, you won't ever get rid of them, you'll just be able to keep their numbers down.
At first it was just a few and they weren't too bad, then they multiplied and became a major pain. Why did they have to multiply so much? They do have their pros which including scarfing down algae on the glass. I know they do that because I seen 'em do it. And they are good at scavenging. They can completely devour a dead fish in a day or so. Sometimes our fish die and disappear and it's good to know that the snails will deal with it instead of the body rotting out of sight.
As I told my son, snails are like kids. A couple of them are good around the house and to propagate your genes and all that but once you get about 50 of them it's time to call in the assassin snails.
Assassin snails. Great in theory but not that great in practice. It's like hiring assassins, I'm sure you've been there, done that.
Me: I'd like to hire you to off the president of Muldavia and his entire cabinet and all their relatives if possible.
Assassin: No problem.
Me: How are you going to do it?
Assassin: Why do you need to know?
Me: I just need to know, tell me.
Assassin: I'm going to eat them.
Me: Won't that take a long time?
So you can see the problem of death by ingestion. Seriously, I thought the assassin snails were going to just like kill the snails and move on to the next one, not laboriously eat them one by one.
Next are the numbers you need. They suggest 5 per 15 gallons. That would be 18 assassin snails for my 55g tank. That's almost just as bad as my original snail problem! It's like:
Me: I'd like to adopt some cats to get rid of my mice problem.
LPS: How many mice are we talking about?
Me: I think we have 2 mice.
LPS: You'll need 7 cats for that.
I ended up buying 3 assassin snails for each tank. They appear to be doing their work. They'll latch onto a snail, eat it, then burrow into the sand to digest it. It looks like they're "assassinating" snails at one per day. At this rate my tanks should be snail free in 2450 days. I think the emphasis on these guys should be snails and not assassination as in "I'm going to buy some assassin SNAILS."
So I'm doing what else the internet has suggested:
1) Put a piece of food into the tank. Once the snails have latched on to it, discard the food and the snails.
2) Crush them and let your fish snack on the free food. Surprisingly this works well, especially with the larger snails. My swordtails have even stopped eating fish food and seem to be dining exclusively on crushed snails. Of course, at that point they are no longer snails, they're escargot.
So the moral of my story is to make sure your plants are snail free when you put them in the tank because once you have snails, you won't ever get rid of them, you'll just be able to keep their numbers down.
