Controling pest snails

[Mrs.JP]

Hi, I am trying to find out what critters can help control the pest snails in one of my tanks but won't harm my brigs. I have heard of dwarf cajen crayfish.

Any thoughts would be great.

Jackie

[Melody]

Unfortunately, anything that will control your pest snails will either eat or try to eat your Brig's.

If you can remove the Brig's to another tank/container for a few weeks, you could add a Yo Yo Loach to the tank to clean up the pests, then find a new home for it. Probably the most sure & quick way to get rid of them would be to take the tank down & bleach it out.

Try to cut back on the feeding. I know its hard when you have other snails but if the pests are flourishing its because they're getting lots of food, so there's room to cut back.

Good luck!

[Mrs.JP]

Thanks Melody. I am hoping not to take down the tank, it is planted and Iam getting guppy fry. I was thinking of getting a loach but trying to decide what to do with it after.

Are there any other types of fish that might work? What about catfish?

Oh and what kind of size range, the problem is in the br.10gl. But I could move whomever into the 55gl because I can not seem to keep snails alive in ther for some reason.

I am still in the planing stages. I know that I've been over feeding because of the fry, I want to make sure they are getting enough. I don't live near a petstore so I try to have some different ideas so that when I do have a chance to get to one I have a better idea of what I am looking for.

Thanks Jackie

[Melody]

Most of the other fish that may eat pest snails would get too big for the tank, and/or they're aggressive. They would also go after the Brig's & fry. Its a tough spot to be in and many snailers have had the same problem. Yo Yo Loaches are what cleaned mine up in record time and they stay reasonably small.

I can't think of anything else you could do but someone may have a trick up their sleeve ;) .

[AquaScaper]

I had MAJOR issues with Ramshorns in my 10gal and after trying loach after loach after loach, picking them out by hand, reducing the food to almost nil and still finding that they were thriving beyond control the only thing that worked was to take the tank down and start from scratch. I had tried to keep Brigs in that tank and they just got WAY out competed all the time, same with some of my algae eating fish, they were starving because the Rams got to every morsel of available food in the tank, it was frustrating and I got sick of picking out 60 snails at a time so finally I just admitted defeat and shut it down. It was the best decision I could have ever made lol. :yes:

[blainep]

Hi, I am trying to find out what critters can help control the pest snails in one of my tanks but won't harm my brigs. I have heard of dwarf cajen crayfish.

Any thoughts would be great.

Jackie

The dwarf crays would snack on the snails for sure, but you would need lots of them to keep up with rams and physa (spelling ?) snails. They'll only get the baby snails as well, adults are to large for them to handle.

The best method I found to reduce the population in my tanks was to slice up a small zucchini lengthwise and put a slice in the tank, at each end, and hold it down with a rock.
Come back in a couple hours and the zucchini will be completely covered in snails.
Lift out the zucchini and slide the snails off, into a bucket, with your finger.
Repeat until the majority of snails were removed. It can take all day, but it would dramatically cut down the population for a few weeks or months.

I don't know of any snail predators that would leave your Brigs alone.

Only other solution I can think of would be to rebuild the tank as AquaScaper suggested.

Or, admit your an aquarium addict and get another tank to be a new home for the Brigs ! :yes:

[Mrs.JP]

Thanks AquaScaper & blainep for the ideas. I feed some to a pea puffer who lives in the 2gl with an otto. But he only eats the physa not the rams and there is still too many for him.

If I go with a predater I will move the Brigs out until the snails are cleaned up and then move the predater to the 55gl and put some brigs back in the br10gl.
Are there any catfish predaters that like snails?

I was thinking of getting some more corries to help clean up the extra food. Does anyone think this might work or is it just an excuss for more corries:yes: .

Jackie

[AquaScaper]

Don't forget to check the Brig's shells for tiny hitchhikers(:icon_snail:) when you move them to another tank or you'l end up with the same problem in 2 tanks instead of 1 like me heh. ;)

[Mrs.JP]

Thanks AquaScaper. Good advice. I'am not sure what I am going to do yet.

Jackie