What eats aquarium snails?

[RichardR]

Ok so last month my wife & youngest daughter decided it would be a good idea to buy some snails at the pet store & put them in our 55 gallon aquarium.

They were only in there overnight before I noticed them, netted them out & had the wife return them to the pet store.

However now it's about a month later & I have about 45-50 or so baby snails infesting my tank, I am guessing netting them out will do absolutely no good at this point, as the parent snails were only in the tank about 8 hours before being removed.

*sigh* so anyway does anyone know of any types of fish that'll eat them?

 

[Westside]

Fresh or Salt water?

 

[Bunnykid68]

They make a chemical that you can add to the tank to kill the snails.
Botias eat snails.

 

[firemedic140]

I don't know about eating them. But I had the same issue. I just kept netting them. Very hot water when cleaning helped. Removed fish most water and dump in hot water. Just when you think they gone......

Now if you put in a fish that will eat them it will probably eat the others. Try crayfish.

 

[Vince49]

The French.

 

[blackenedman]

yoyo loaches are great for this. cool little fish, will take care of the snails...

the yoyos ive had were in with black mollies, and never showed aggression toward them

 

[Bunnykid68]

Get Rid of Small Snails from Aquariums.

 

[Sureshot129]

The French.

Yea but then you have to get rid of them!

 

[RichardR]

It's a fresh water tank, I do have other invertebrates (ghost shrimp) in the tank though so I'm not sure if the chemical solution would kill them off as well.

But yea I guess what ever sort of fish that could/would eat the snails would probably also eat the ghost shrimp too eh? jeesh maybe I'll just grow them out to full size, call them escargot & sell them to some guys named Pepe' & Joch or something.

 

[Westside]

It's a fresh water tank, I do have other invertebrates (ghost shrimp) in the tank though so I'm not sure if the chemical solution would kill them off as well.

But yea I guess what ever sort of fish that could/would eat the snails would probably also eat the ghost shrimp too eh? jeesh maybe I'll just grow them out to full size, call them escargot & sell them to some guys named Pepe' & Joch or something.

Having ghost shrimp makes it more difficult.

The chemicals while kill the shrimps as well. (at least to my knowledge.)

any fish that eat snails also eat shrimp.

I would suggest netting them out as you can and just throw them out or sale them to the pet shop for store credit. The easiest way is to clip a lettuce leaf to the side of the aquarium each night before you go to bed then dispose of lettuce along with the snails eating it in the morning. Snails typically forage at night and hide in the sub-straight during the day. so replacing all of the gravel in the bottom will help as well.

I am going to assume these were apple snails as they are most common. check along the water line and the canopy for more egg pouches. they will look like this.

and always be above the water line as the embryos drown if submerged. Snail reproduce asexually, it only takes one, so you have to remove them as you see them or your problem will get out of control very quickly.

Hope this helps.
PM me if you have any specific questions.

 

[melensdad]

The French.

Yup, and they cook them in garlic butter and top them with a little puff pastry. Darn tasty too.

 

[RichardR]

Well thanks for the feed back everyone, I had always heard that "once you have snails, you will always have snails" so I've always avoided buying any snails just for that reason.

I guess if they are actually edible (do apple snails taste like apples?) I could always try eating a couple of them just for ****s & giggles.

 

[Hoosierdood]

The French.

Yea but then you have to get rid of them!

Just threaten war. They scatter real fast.

 

[Titanium_Frost]

The French.

Yea but then you have to get rid of them!

Use Germans.

 

[tyler34]

shrimp are generally very tolerant to chemicals with the exception of copper. trace amounts of copper even from your plumbing pipes will kill your shrimp though not immediately through breeding shrimp over the years I have learned this the hard way. and the best snail predator I have come across is a puffer fish, they are gnarly snail hunters and have to be because that's how they keep their teeth trimmed.

 

[Westside]

shrimp are generally very tolerant to chemicals with the exception of copper. trace amounts of copper even from your plumbing pipes will kill your shrimp though not immediately through breeding shrimp over the years I have learned this the hard way. and the best snail predator I have come across is a puffer fish, they are gnarly snail hunters and have to be because that's how they keep their teeth trimmed.

good suggestion except his is fresh water.

 

[tyler34]

good suggestion except his is fresh water.

I know that, there are a couple varieties of freshwater puffers.

edit: gratuitous shrimp pics

 

[RichardR]

Puffers eh?

I wasn't aware that there were any fresh water puffer species, I'll have to check into them, they sound like a neat addition to my tank & if they don't eat any of your shrimp they sound like they might be just the thing I'm looking for.

Anyway Tyler those are some really good looking shrimp ya got there, the ones I have are just the el'cheapo "see-through" ones but they are still really neat to sit & watch.

Its not like I couldn't easily replace my shrimp if I wiped them out killing off the snails but I've had them for generations upon generations upon generation of shrimp now, they somehow manage to keep their numbers fairly stable all by themselves & I would hate to do anything that might disrupt that sort of natural eco-balance in my tank.

 

[tyler34]

you got ghost shrimp to reproduce in your aquarium? that's extremely rare. but yes sadly unless you have good hiding places for the shrimp the puffers will eat them, all my shrimp tanks are shrimp only because in most mixed tanks shrimp are just expensive food.

 

[sharkey]

The French.

Yea but then you have to get rid of them!

Just hand them a rifle that's OK being dropped, then yell at them in German. They'll be gone before you run out of your first breath