salt dips for snails and effect on bb

[bbortko]

I have a major snail issue in my planted tank. For now I have assassin snails and physical remove the larger snails. When my schedulepermits, pprobably in May, I want to change the substrate. When changing the substrate I'm giving the plants a salt dip for the snails however the snails are also in the filters. Will rinsing the media in the salt bath also kill the beneficial bacteria?

 

[Drstrangelove]

I don't know, but the BB in saltwater tanks are different than the ones in FW tanks. My guess is that a high level of salt will kill off the FW BB. If you are using 1 tsp per gallon, it might be ok, but 'dips' typically mean a much higher concentration for a short period of time. Some bacteria die pretty quickly under large doses of salt (think saltwater mouth rinses that we use, or salted pork/beef.) There are salt tolerant bacteria in nature, but without knowing if the BB are that type, I'd avoid that method.

 

[MonsterMinis]

depending on what your stock is.. keeping a loach/s as a permanent resident imo is one of the most effective and natural ways to handle snails. aside from doing a complete tear-down and re-cycle either phycially or chemically ( salting included) there is really no 100% safe and effective way to erradicate snails. Hitting your bio-media directly with a saltwater dip will imo kill enough of your bacteria to cause a re-cycle. also depends what species your dealing with.

 

[virgil2090]

The assasin snails worked well in my 10 gal. But it took over 2 months to make a difference. You can add like 10 snails, they won't put a hit on each other

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[Carefree_Dude]

what kind of snails? I had a trumpet snail problem once. It was so bad, that trumpet snails were crawling on my fish! I tried many things to get rid of them. I eventually just had to abandon the tank, and relocate the fish to a new one.

 

[bbortko]

I know there are ramshorn snails but the really small ones look like trumpet snails, not sure if ramshorn start this way when young or if I have multiple species. This tank is a 36g bowfront so I maybe able to get by with yoyo loaches and just accept my cherry shrimp may be goners. At the time of rescape I'm leaning towards replacing sponge and pad in ac20(only media in it) as well as replacing pads in 2217, dipping the eheim mech and all the plants. Water and substate will be 100% new, I can grab another half dozen assassins and hope the infestation has been hit hard enough to handle via assassins going forward.

 

[MonsterMinis]

My CL's don't bother my assassin snails... or didn't i should say as the assassins where eventually starved from lack of food. I managed to save a few when I found them starting to die off by tossing them in another snail filled tank.