Apple Snail Issues

Hi all,

In addition to my 250l tank, I have a small 30l tank that I use to experiment with. Currently it is setup as a low-tech planted tank with some X-ray tetras and Otos. Weekend before last I bought an Apple Snail and put it in the 30l. All went well until about three days ago this thing seriously started doing damage to my plants, but I sort of expected this. It grew about three times the size since I bought it.

I would like to move it to my 250l tank where I keep silver dollars, a bunch of tetras and three polka-dot loaches. I read that loaches love snails, but not in the brotherly-love kind of way. With the snail being massive, and the loaches being relatively small, what are your thoughts on the snail's life expectancy in the big tank?

Regards,

JJFury.

 

I wish my loaches will start eating my snails. Every second with water change I take out about 50 snails just to keep there numbers down.

 

What is the best way to control or to get rid off snails, I know there is chemicals for it some other copper but then I heard that it damages your plants, does those snail catchers work they sell at the pet shops?

 

Well I read that clown loaches will apparently do a good job clearing out snails. So far i managed to keep the small ones out of the tank, but I quite enjoy the big apple snail, so I would prefer it survive.

 

I've picked up a forum chat around snails , just search snail problem. The guy explains it quit well tipes of snails and solving snail problems. From chemical to clowns or yoyo loaches "although my yoyo loach isn't helping" lettuce or Manuelly controlling them but to completely get rid of them seems to be almost impossible.

Im im going to try the cucumber and lettuce trick to control them rather then manually remove them from the tank every second week.

 

I did the snail trap thing... Did not work. Got a new tank and found out that the snails were in my filter. At this stage in the 250 I kill every snail I see. Killed 4 last night so decided to try the snail trap again.
When I returned from vacation there were 4 snails in the trap. But that was the only thing I caught.

 

I have dwarf puffers and would love to take any extra snails pretty please. Don't really care what kind they are.

 

@SterlingAce, seems like you should be able to rent out your puffer for an hourly rate as a snail cleaner .

 

Hahahaha I have 4 of them and getting another bunch soon. I had a horrible ramshorn infestation,they cleared it up in a few days. But they could hardly swim after that! Worried they would explode :hahaha:

 

Hijacked topic but don't chemically rid your tank of snails. You will not know how many you really have until they are dead and decomposing in your water. And they do a good job with algae...

 

But yeah I'm very serious about wanting any snails pretty please.

 

Snails get a terrible rep for no reason. I have a tank filled with asian trumpet snails. They do an excellent job of eating all the un eaten food and turning over my pool filter sand.

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Update on the snail, it seems like the one polka dot loach realised this morning that the snail is 'edible' and started taking opportunistic bites out of him when they happen to meet in the tank. Up to this morning they pretty much left him alone, but I had to move the snail back to the small tank.

So there you have it folks, small loaches eat big snails, small snails eat plants and grow big very quickly.

So how do you prevent your apple snails from destroying your planted tanks?

 

I had an apple snail infestation... they were breeding like flies, getting into everything, caused the tank to overflow at least twice by getting into pipes. And they never touched the plants. I suspect that they prefer real food and there was always some left over fish food.

 

I have three apple snails and strange enough they have never eaten any of my plants, just occasionally uprooting them.

 

Is there really a good snail?

 

Plenty really.

 

I still have this damn snail. It looks beautiful in my paludarium, but he hhas now finally destroyed the last of my zantedeschia.

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