They're baaaaack

[Joeymozzer]

After almost a year of snail ingestion I somehow (I don't know how) got rid of the millions I had, now I've noticed they returned, they must have came along with a plant I got at the LFS. I've noticed white specks on my glass, and also larger darker shells. Agghh time to start picking them out again. The last batch are dried out now

[Zenzu]

That sounds like Nerites which don't breed in freshwater and are extremely good algae eaters that do not harm plants.

[Joeymozzer]

I just hate the site of a million lol

[Zenzu]

got pictures of the white spots you are seeing? are they clusters of eggs in a gel or is it like awhite spec that looks like a sesame seed? fyi if you had a million nerites you could have easily made a million dollars.

[Joeymozzer]

Lol, don't think they are nerites. Think the darker are tam horn, the spots are like sesame seeds, hard texture almost looks like a grain of salt

[Zenzu]

Ramshorn and Bladder snails both have egg bunches in gel. Nerites produce white eggs that are hard. If you have breeding nerites in your tank I envy you. They are $1.50 - $3.00 a pop depending on type. Horned nerites are the best. They are smaller, look cool and love gsa.

[Bongox3]

Hi Joey...the presence of some snails is actually beneficial...but an infestation is generally resultant of an imbalance... usually over feeding or too much detritus on the tanks substarate...if u really want to reduce numbers, physically eliminate as many as possible (snail traps are discussed all over YouTube); increase vacuuming, and lessen feeding... the vast majority of us overfeed as its very interesting to watch... most can drastically reduce feeding and keep very happy fish...

[Joeymozzer]

IMG_1179.jpgThanks guys, I can't remember what caused my last ingestion to disappear. I've limited feeding to every other day. I don't mind them just not in the hundreds+

[devilduck]

Those are Malaysian trumpet snails. You probably won't be able to completely rid yourself of them. They burrow in the substrate and birth live offspring, no eggs.
A lot of people like them as they aerate the substrate but they can reproduce out of control if you have a lot of detris and overfeed.

You might be able kill them of you take out all your livestock and purposely gas the tank with CO2. That will drive them all to the surface where you can scrap them off.

[Bongox3]

Those are MTS...trumpet snails... and they breed very rapidly... good thing about them is that they burrow into the soil both helping root growth and avoiding the build up of toxic gasses... they are a pain to get rid of once established though...

Options:
1)manually remove em (a trick is to remove fish, gas the tank with high levels of co2... they will start to move towards the surface or at least the top of the substrate - and suction em up)... u can also darken the tank, as they are largely nocturnal and pick em up too...
2) loaches and puffers eat em... but puffers can become aggressive and adding fish isn't always the best option...
3) chemical (copper) additives... I've never used it, as I don't like playing with water quality- but certain chems will kill invertebrates rapidly
4) best option is to just maintain them... remove a great deal, but know that those remaining benefit the tank by removing excess crap in the substrate - a bloom or infestation of em can also be a warning sign to reduce feedings and increase water changes by vacuuming at the substrate level more often...

They really aren't a bad thing... just unsightly when too many are present...

[geektom]

Get yourself some loaches, like Mike said- depending on the size of your tank, Yo Yo loaches are great, or sidthimunki for smaller tanks.


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[Joeymozzer]

I had a bad infestion last year and without trying got rid. I think a plant from LFS carried a few, I'll pick out what I see and try to maintain

[Zenzu]

MTS!!! strangely enough people buy MTS on facebook/planted tank. Not a favored snail of mine, but have a healthy colony in my 75g. Like someone else said get yourself some loaches or dwarf puffer. You can also effectively use a bottle trap with spinach or lettuce. There are also products you can use to kill snails without harming plants/fish/shrimp.

[Joeymozzer]

I wouldn't mind that if they didn't produce so fast and often

[Zenzu]

Haha truth, snails can get out of control quickly when given ideal conditions and left unchecked.

[bl665]

Get yourself some loaches, like Mike said- depending on the size of your tank, Yo Yo loaches are great, or sidthimunki for smaller tanks.

So I wonder if anyone else has dealt with this issue. I got my mother into fish and planted tanks a few months down the line the MTS are growing out of control!!! Way to much food.
hence.... Motherly love.

I went and picked up 4 yo-yo loaches (2 for me) (2 for her). They completely got rid of the snails. Great !! so I thought !

The 75 I had for about a month was growing plants great The loaches with there digging habits completely inhilated my plants and up rooted almost every one of them. Is this because the roots did not have enough time to establish ???

Another thing me and my mother noticed with the loaches. They would consistently come up and attack the bigger fish. For me 1 of my discus is missing a piece of his eye because of it.
Same goes for one of her angel fish which is the only fish in the tank besides the loaches...

I know this is a personal experience but has anyone ever dealt with this as far as yo-yo's go ?!

[Bongox3]

SK, that's wild... I had them before in a larger shoal in a 100g tank... the only aggression they ever showed was towards each other as they established a "pecking order"... I know, like certain barbs, they get stressed if not kept in numbers, and could act out...but even when challenging each other I never saw injuries...

Also, they do burrow looking for food, but they never really uprooted anything with larger roots... stuff like baby tears and young not yet established sp repens would pop up all the time however...

I happen to really like these fish... it's very cool to see them interact - kinda like mini dolphins at times... a larger shoal may curb aggressive behavior - I don't think 2 per tank is enough for em... I would suggest a min of 5 per shoal for them to not feel stressed out...

[bl665]

Yes it was very wild. We immediately took them back after they were done doing there job. I have no idea what caused it but I'm sure the fact that they were only in 2's would have to play a big part in them doing that. I can guarantee as well that the plants I had were not heavily rooted also as they were newly planted. It just threw for a loop because I've never heard or seen them act this way with anyone else.

[geektom]

I have never had the issue, wow. I have kept very small loaches (sidthimunki) to pretty big ones, like horse face.


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[Zenzu]

Loaches can be evil. In a tank I used to maintain there was 8 sidthimunki loaches, they would frequently find their way into the sump and I was also told they would attacke the other fish. I had seen them a few times pull scales off other fish with their barbs. Everytime I added new fish to the tank they would disappear slowly over weeks. All parameters were in range, tank had no issues, discus were happy.

Once I removed the sidthimunki loaches the tank had a complete turn around. All the fish seemed happier and new additions were no longer disappearing.