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Snail Problem?

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pinchez

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16 Jun 2013
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I have a silly amount of pest snails in my 50L Betta tank which also has shrimp. I looked into a Esha product to rid them but some people have said it also killed their shrimp. So I’m thinking what’s the smallest snail eating loach that won’t have much of an effect on my shrimp population or Betta?
 
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I agree with dw. Most anti snail treatments will damage or kill shrimp. Assasin snails are really effective but can be too effective and destroy the entire population rather than just keeping it in check. Just put a piece of cucumber somewhere in the tank. leave it a few hours and then pull it out, any shrimp on it will swim away, but you can throw away the pile of snails.
 
pinchez said:
I have a silly amount of pest snails in my 50L Betta tank which also has shrimp. I looked into a Esha product to rid them but some people have said it also killed their shrimp. So I’m thinking what’s the smallest snail eating loach that won’t have much of an effect on my shrimp population or Betta?
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Snail populations usually grow excessively when food is in abundance. Perhaps try feeding less to help control the population.
 
Piotr Listwan said:
Had one in one of my tanks and it does the job.

I’ve even asked my local aquatic shop if i can have some pest snails only just to feed him/her and it ate them all.

Not even one pest snail left over some period of time.
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I almost wiped out my mts, with assassins
There remained a small population in the filter (its a large filter😂)
 
What interesting is in my case. It did not touch any other snails in tank.

I mean nerite snails and other spotted snails were ok :)

But it is a bad boy 🤣
 
I used a combo med of malachite green and formalin, it nuked all my snails and I still have shrimp alive in the tank. It was an unintentional side effect and now I need to get more Malaysian trumpet snails.
 
hypnogogia said:
I’d say that’s fortunate. Assassins will usually attack all snails.
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Maybe because they were bigger. Maybe. I don’t know…

I mean this assassin was smaller then other snails.

But they were living peacefully together for about a year or so.

After that it has disappeared somewhere. I’m presuming it has died naturally. It had quite big shell damage constantly progressing possibly caused by moving between stones or something and a huge algae on it.

It was a nice snail.
 
The snails can be harvested by putting in some algae wafers, peeled cucumbers or similar into a small dish - the snail will be all over it in a day or so and can be easily removed without disturbing the substrate etc. Don't introduce livestock to cull your pest snail population - uneaten or dying snails will just pollute your water - same goes with chemicals. Don't use chemicals to kill the snails!

As Darrel mentioned above, snails are generally a good thing in our tanks, but the population size can easily get out of hand.

Cheers,
Michael
 
MichaelJ said:
snails are generally a good thing in our tanks, but the population size can easily get out of hand.
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Unless you introduce a population from outside a given tank, overpopulation of snails never happens. Snails possess some chemical signals to avoid overpopulation. If they are not fed well, they quit breeding.
Now, if you have too many snails, it means nothing else than you feed them too well. The most obvious source is fish overfeeding. Another one is plants in poor health with dropping lower leaves and decaying others. Overabundance of snails is always the owner's fault.
 
pinchez said:
So I’m thinking what’s the smallest snail eating loach that won’t have much of an effect on my shrimp population or Betta
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I have clown loaches. The population of Malaysian Trumpet snails remains undisturbed as the shells are too narrow for the loaches to get to the soft squidgy bits in the middle.
 
Piotr Listwan said:
Maybe because they were bigger. Maybe. I don’t know…

I mean this assassin was smaller then other snails.
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Clea Helena snails (aka assassin snails) have absolutely no concerns whatsoever hitting snails twice their size or more. When they can't do it alone they gang up and make sure they get what they are after. They are truly gangsters.
 
_Maq_ said:
Now, if you have too many snails, it means nothing else than you feed them too well. The most obvious source is fish overfeeding. Another one is plants in poor health with dropping lower leaves and decaying others. Overabundance of snails is always the owner's fault.
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Often yes, but not necessarily always the case. If you keep shrimps, a legit reason for snails becoming too prolific might be that the snails gets into or share the shrimps food.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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Hanuman said:
Clea Helena snails (aka assassin snails) have absolutely no concerns whatsoever hitting snails twice their size or more. When they can't do it alone they gang up and make sure they get what they are after. They are truly gangsters.
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Weird then 🤷‍♂️
 
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