# Little Snails in my tank!!! Help? x_x



## Caii (Jan 17, 2013)

Hey everyone and thanks for reading!!!

I'm currently cycling a 10 gallon NPt tank that has java fern, hornwort, jungle val, corkscrew val, anubias, pennywort, and umbrella plants in it.

Before I added each plant, I thoroughly checked them and washed them to avoid the situation that's happened anyway! @[email protected]

While looking through the tank to see the progress of each plant, I discovered two little snails crawling on the glass!

I tried to grab them but they fell to where I couldn't see them anymore... little escape artists... :evil:

The three questions I have are:

1. Are these snails good, bad, or whatever?
2. What are the effects if I let them stay?
3. If I need to get rid of them, what's the best way to do it without damaging the plants?

Thank you so much for reading and please reply if you've got any advice!!! The lps here closes at 9 pm..


----------



## tekkguy (Jan 28, 2013)

They won't hurt anything and in fact will help keep the plants healthy. You will have a lot of them though. If it gets to be too many, you can clean out the clutches of eggs that pop up and remove individual snails as you see them. A small glass full of lettuce will cause a bunch of them to congregate to be removed all at once. You can also do what I'm about to do and add an assassin snail, which will help keep the population in check. 

Worst case, you can get some copper treatment and nuke them ... But chemicals are chemicals and the tank will probably never be safe for any invertebrates again. A dip of your plants in a 10% bleach solution will usually keep them from entering into your tank, but more sensitive plants can be damaged that way.


----------



## Caii (Jan 17, 2013)

tekkguy said:


> They won't hurt anything and in fact will help keep the plants healthy. You will have a lot of them though. If it gets to be too many, you can clean out the clutches of eggs that pop up and remove individual snails as you see them. A small glass full of lettuce will cause a bunch of them to congregate to be removed all at once. You can also do what I'm about to do and add an assassin snail, which will help keep the population in check.
> 
> Worst case, you can get some copper treatment and nuke them ... But chemicals are chemicals and the tank will probably never be safe for any invertebrates again. A dip of your plants in a 10% bleach solution will usually keep them from entering into your tank, but more sensitive plants can be damaged that way.


Oh thank god! I was so worried that they'd be bad and try to eat all of the precious plants I had tried so hard to grow! ^^;
Chemicals and I do not mix.... :roll:
Thank you for your input!


----------



## tekkguy (Jan 28, 2013)

Yes, I do not are for extra chemicals either. That's why I'm choosing assassin snails.


----------



## MiyuMikaelson (Feb 4, 2013)

I was told to put a slice of cucumber in my tank overnight and remove it in the morning to remove quite a number of them. (It was effective for me and I still have 3 or 4. :lol: )

At least it might help with regulating them.
^^;


----------



## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

snails are friends ^___^
i love your hornwort btw:3


----------



## Otterfun (Dec 31, 2012)

I took mine out a week or two ago. It was more like an air bubble when I found him on the glass. people here said it is a pond snail, this is 1/4" big now


----------



## Aurie (Jun 22, 2012)

I have pond snails in one of my 10 gallons and to be honest, at first I wanted to kill every single one, then I realised that my tank has never looked cleaner! If you end up with a TON of them, your tank needs to be cleaned more. Every time I see lots of them, like, they're everywhere, I snag the gravel vac and go to town and I"m amazed at how dirty the tank got from my neglegence. They just eat extra stuff in the tank .. dead plant matter, fish poop, fish food etc. If there are a lot of them, then you have a lot of that stuff. If you keep the tank cleaner they will die off from lack of food. If I went and looked at my tank now I wouldn't see any compared to a month ago when I had them all over the glass cause I didn't clean the tank well enough.

If you want to get rid of them naturally, get an assassin snail. They look like black/white malaysian trumpet snails and they looooooove pond/bladder snails the most, followed by malaysian/ramshorn snails. I would recommend 1 per 10 gallon tank.


----------



## Caii (Jan 17, 2013)

MiyuMikaelson said:


> I was told to put a slice of cucumber in my tank overnight and remove it in the morning to remove quite a number of them. (It was effective for me and I still have 3 or 4. :lol: )
> 
> At least it might help with regulating them.
> ^^;


Sounds good! Thank you for the advice ^^


----------



## Caii (Jan 17, 2013)

aokashi said:


> snails are friends ^___^
> i love your hornwort btw:3


Thank you!!! I'm thinking of getting some more to handle the ammonia levels.... also because I think it looks cool... XD


----------

