Snail Problem

[nwestwood]

Now that my system is about 4 months old, I'm seeing baby snails pop up. Especially in the DWC tank and sump tank. I've been manually smashing the small ones in an attempt to kill them before the reproduce and lay eggs, but not sure I can keep up.

What kind of common (not regulated) fish eat snails? Or what other ways are there to get rid of them, short of complete sterilization?

[GaryD]

Hi,

Are they small white snails?

GaryD

[Tsaphah]

If the temperature in your sump is warm enough, you could look at placing about 3 Yoyo Loaches (scientific name is Botia lohachata, and you often see them sold as Lohachata Loaches). They are partialy nocturnal, like a place to hide and dont usually bother other fish. You could always take them out during winter and keep them in an indoor aquarium. Will eat normal floating flake fish food.
Be warned though, they are jumpers and escape artists.

[nwestwood]

Right now they are small brown snails. I know where they came from, I used water from another system and they have snails, they grow to 1/2-1 inch size (12-25 mm). They lay a slimmy clear patch of eggs when they mature. I don't have many tiny ones at present, but one is to many and when there is one, thousands will come.

I'll need to put preditors in my sump tank and the DWC tank. The water temp is kept above 67 degrees (19C). The DWC tank will have dangling roots, and the snails are often on the bottom of the foam boards (they are they easy ones to smash).

[Ravnis]

redear sunfish AKA shell crackers are well known for eating snails , I have them in my sump for that very reason. Just start with 1 or 2 , because they dont take artificial feed well and will probably eat themselves out of a job. It's a cousin of bluegill and native to the US. However , not all fish regulations make logical sense, so double check that its legal.

[nwestwood]

I'll check into the sunfish. I've moved a few of my starter goldfish that were in the sump to the DWC tank. I'm not seeing any snails in the sump, so maybe the goldfish eat all the eggs and small snails before they grow. I'll watch and see if the snail eggs disappear over time, if so, then the goldfish may be enough also. Does anyone know if Goldfish will eat the roots off the lettuce? I know that Koi will browse on algea and moss, but will goldfish eat roots?

[Outbackozzie]

Yes they will if hungry.

[Bidadisndat]

They will: I tried growing a lettuce on a raft in the aquarium, but it got shredded from beneath.
......Bid...

[nwestwood]

The goldfish have cleared out the small snails. There are still some eggs. I've started feeding them every other day to keep them from browsing on the plants to much, but will continue to see what happens, so far the plants havent' suffered.

[DaveOponic]

My snail problem was tiny snails in the growbeds. The cone shaped snails had probably found their way into the GB's from the water via Water Hyacinth I used to put in the tank to feed the Tilapia.

I tried manually crushing them for weeks then one evening noticed that there were many more of them each time the growbeds flooded. It seemed these snails either didn't like the water or were just floating to the top.

Anyway over the past couple of weeks we have had very hot conditions here in Borneo and for some reason the growbeds haven't been flooding as high. There are always dry clayballs on the top few cm's and no sign of any snails. So hopefully, snails have reached the end of their life cycle, drowned or dried up without need for emtying growbeds. Veges are looking much healthier without being munched by thousands of tiny snails.

... and as far as underwater snails go...... I keep two tortoises in one of the tanks. I fed a snail (land based) to them this morning and they munched it up quickly... so you might try introducing a small tortoise/turtle to your fishtank.

They also help to stir up the poo and keep it from collecting on the bottom of the tank as their webbed feet really stir up the dirt on the tank bottom.

Dave