I have a 240 g. All of a sudden I notice these little pointed shell snails that keep Multiplying & Multiplying . Any one know how to get rid of these things, they are becomeing a problem. i dont know how the showed up in the first place..
tiny multiplying snails need to go !!!!
- Thread starter zanemgray
- Start date
If your aquarium is glass, take a hammer and some over-applied anger and very carefully smash each glass panel of your aquarium until all the water evaporates from the room the aquarium was in. Once the water evaporates, the snails should die within two weeks. If your tank is acryllic, you'll need to add a fair dosage of anger to your hammer work. If you're out of C4, a drill with a strong bit might do it...
There is another way, however...
How much money are you willing to spend on the black market for some Cesium-234? If you wanna go the cheap route instead, about 10 pounds of lye per each gallon in your tank might work. Borrow or steal a half-ton pickup truck and you can probably get all the lye you'll need in two and a half trips...
Or.... You could put something in the tank that does something like... say... eats the snails!!! But if you're going to do that, you might want to skip the hammer approach (maintain the proper anger, of course) and perhaps save the C4 for a "harmless" prank at school or work...
Let's see... a snail, like any other living, non-imaginary creature also needs a little something called "food" to live. If you cut off their food, they will have a hard time making to the fridge and back with enough supplies for the whole tank population.
Then again, perhaps these pointy little bastards are doing something other than teaching you about biology, wising you up to the theories of contamination, embolding me to tell you to attempt to do a little research and you can find an endless supply of answers without having to ask and frustrating you with their ***gasp*** unsightly, horrid appearance!!!
Perhaps the slimy, icky, stupid snails are cleaning the hell out of your substrate for the small cost of merely over-populating their sunjected, contained environment - which obviously lacks a predator and has a healthy supply of food.
A 240? Get yourself a quarrantine tank...
There is another way, however...
How much money are you willing to spend on the black market for some Cesium-234? If you wanna go the cheap route instead, about 10 pounds of lye per each gallon in your tank might work. Borrow or steal a half-ton pickup truck and you can probably get all the lye you'll need in two and a half trips...
Or.... You could put something in the tank that does something like... say... eats the snails!!! But if you're going to do that, you might want to skip the hammer approach (maintain the proper anger, of course) and perhaps save the C4 for a "harmless" prank at school or work...
Let's see... a snail, like any other living, non-imaginary creature also needs a little something called "food" to live. If you cut off their food, they will have a hard time making to the fridge and back with enough supplies for the whole tank population.
Then again, perhaps these pointy little bastards are doing something other than teaching you about biology, wising you up to the theories of contamination, embolding me to tell you to attempt to do a little research and you can find an endless supply of answers without having to ask and frustrating you with their ***gasp*** unsightly, horrid appearance!!!
Perhaps the slimy, icky, stupid snails are cleaning the hell out of your substrate for the small cost of merely over-populating their sunjected, contained environment - which obviously lacks a predator and has a healthy supply of food.
A 240? Get yourself a quarrantine tank...
gran charismo;2049885; said:
Sure, if you want a dry floor, a room that doesn't smell like lye (or freshly incinerated C4) and hundreds of tiny, empty snail shells as substrate...
If they are bothering the guy this much, he's got no other choice... he's gotta pick up the hammer and do it right.
In all seriousness - there are ways to maintain a HEALTHY snail population in a tank you can benefit from and NOT have to leech chemicals into your set-up.
Chemicals also tends to work on other invertebrates... and with the health and reproductive functions of creatures you might "want"...
actually, there are much better methods.
the best and easiest is to stop overfeeding to control the snail polulation, and use bait-and-trap as an aid to that. they will only reproduce if there is an available food source, which probably means you're overfeeding.
place a piece of cucumber or lettuce inside a water bottle and tie a few rocks to it so it lays horizontally on the substrate. do this in the evening and in the morning you should have a few hundred inside the bottle. remove, freeze to kill, repeat.
snail-killing chemicals are extremely pervasive, as most contain copper, and they can ruin a tank for invertebrates forever. they leach into anything plastic or wood in the tank and will leach back out into the water for years, killing sensitive fish and invertebrates.
salt is not a good option because snails buried in the substrate can escape and survive. furthermore, even if you could kill all the snails at once with salt or a chemical, then you have to dig hundreds of snails out of the substrate before they rot and pollute the water. try finding all those little shells in the gravel. you'll never get them all.
they're actually good for most tanks, as they aerate the substrate and prevent anaerobic gas pockets from forming, they clean up leftovers and won't overpopulate unless you're overfeeding.
best of luck.
the best and easiest is to stop overfeeding to control the snail polulation, and use bait-and-trap as an aid to that. they will only reproduce if there is an available food source, which probably means you're overfeeding.
place a piece of cucumber or lettuce inside a water bottle and tie a few rocks to it so it lays horizontally on the substrate. do this in the evening and in the morning you should have a few hundred inside the bottle. remove, freeze to kill, repeat.
snail-killing chemicals are extremely pervasive, as most contain copper, and they can ruin a tank for invertebrates forever. they leach into anything plastic or wood in the tank and will leach back out into the water for years, killing sensitive fish and invertebrates.
salt is not a good option because snails buried in the substrate can escape and survive. furthermore, even if you could kill all the snails at once with salt or a chemical, then you have to dig hundreds of snails out of the substrate before they rot and pollute the water. try finding all those little shells in the gravel. you'll never get them all.
they're actually good for most tanks, as they aerate the substrate and prevent anaerobic gas pockets from forming, they clean up leftovers and won't overpopulate unless you're overfeeding.
best of luck.
Sounds like MTS, you can find people who'd be willing to buy them. Make some money off of them! Food for puffers to eat, loaches eat them (I've heard not as much though) and they DO tend to keep your tank algae free if they live long enough. Not too much of a nuisance if you have a decent depth substrate, as they tend to burrow in there, and only come out at night.
Manny Stiles;2051546; said:
I was agreeing with you and reinforcing the point!
It's important that people understand what just going at a snail problem without thinking it through can result in! Bad news.