Best solutions for pesty pond snail invasion

[AUvet14]

I'm just starting this thread because I'm curious to see the different methods that people have tried to try to rid an planted tank of pest pond snails. I struggled with an infestation for several months about a year ago. I didn't recognize it as a problem at first until I started seeing them EVERYWHERE and they started eating holes in my plants. I tried many things to get rid of them.

I have read somewhere that dward cichlids will eat them. I had 2 bolivian rams but they didn't seem interested at all in eating them or if they did, it did nothing to control the population. The first popular method I tried was a few yoyo loaches. The loaches seemed to do an okay job, but I couldn't tell a significant difference, possibly because the snail population was so out of control. Also, the loaches were going to end up being bigger than I wanted for my 30gal. I then traded in the yoyo loaches for 12 assassin snails. These were by far the best solution at controlling the pest snail population. Once I added the assassin snails, i started seeing empty pond snail shells appearing on top of the substrate. The population finally appeared to be under control. a couple months ago, I changed out all of the substrate to remove any snails that may have been hiding in the substrate as well as remove all of the unsightly empty shells.

I have learned my lesson now and I am now much more careful at preventing snails from getting into the tank in the first place.

[reignOfFred]

Assassin snails worked wonders for me, and it only took two of them to completely clean out my 20g L. The only downside was they also cleaned out the trumpet snails I had introduced purposefully. now I add trumpets occasionally, but they disappear so fast.

[jersysman]

Adding more snails to a tank that has assassins is like signing their death warrant. It's just a matter of when.

[brogan]

I bought 4 assassin snails for to get rid of a nasty pond snail invasion in my 55 gallon. They are in check now, but if I were to do it differently I would manually remove as many as I could, then add 1 or 2 assassins to keep them in check. I did not mind the pond snails, but they were out of control. This way I could add nerites and other snails and not worry about them getting attacked by assassins when there were too few pond snails to find.

[isu712]

Cut down on your feeding. If you're feeding twice a day, cut it back to once, or if you're feeding daily cut it back to every other day. Pond snail populations generally explode if you're overfeeding.

[somewhatshocked]

Snail outbreaks happen for two reasons: 99% of the time it's due to overfeeding. The other 1% of the time, bunches of egg clutches come in on plants that you aren't cleaning properly before adding them to your tank.

For the most part, pond and bladder snails won't eat plants that are alive and healthy if there's something else to eat in the tank. That's almost always the case. They only eat plant matter that is dead or dying. Also typically don't eat holes in plants - they'll eat around the decaying edges. If you have visible holes in your plants, that sounds like an issue of some sort of nutrient deficiency.

But to rid unwanted snails? Use a trap like an inverted bottle with food in it. Or a lettuce leaf/piece of zucchini. Once it's loaded down with snails, remove it.

[scapegoat]

i have three assassin snails. they're lazy...

[TWA]

I had issues with snails, an as stated all I needed to do was stop feeding. It may not be great but fish can easily live getting fed once a week. I feed probably once every 5 days because it simply doesnt matter. They won't die.

[bradlgt21]

I am surprised it took until post 5 for someone to post the true reason snail populations get out of control. Snails don't breed and multiply unless there is a large enough food source to get them fat and ready to lay eggs. Feed your tank properly and you should have a small snail population. Any tank that gets a outbreak is being fed to much.