Snails!

[Pooky125]

Last night, Honeybee105 and I walked into my bedroom, to check on the fish, when we noticed my uncles beloved goldfish had died... I'd just gotten back from vacation the day before, so I hadn't had time to sit down and watch the fish yet.. Anyway, the only reason I even kept him in that tank, and didn't go out, and get him his own, was, he ate snails. That particular tank has an incredibly bad snail problem.. Any way, I was just wondering, what should I do about them.. I have a chemical to kill them, but I'm not using it, I've consitered loaches, but, I can't find any yoyo loaches, and I think clowns would be to big for that tank. The tank is a 30 with 4 gouramis, 1 pictus catfish, 2 swordtails, 1 male betta, and 5 mollys. Would my 3 little kuhli loaches from a different tank take care of the problem, or should I go out and buy 3 clown loaches. I can get them as small as 1" here, and let them take care of the problem. Sorry for the long post.. thx for ur ideas

 

[caveman]

It may sound like tedious work, but I think the best way to get rid of a snail population is to manually remove them. Even if that means just removing a couple every day, you will eventually see a decline in their numbers.  IMO there is a problem with "snail eating" fish.  All the ones I have tend to only eat snails as a last resort, but in order for them to get that hungry I have to starve the entire tank, I would rather just kill them myself.  And you defenately dont want to use chemicals.  They may have an adverse affect on your plants or fish, plus after it does work just think of all the dead snail carcasses that will be in your tank and upping your ammonia. Hope that helps.