snails

[suebob28]

hi i have a larg tank in it i have 11Kuhli Loach and some clown loaches i throught that they would eat the cone snails that are in there they came on a plant and now i must have at least 50 or move how can i get rid of them if i suck the water out the kuhli loaches might come out and i might hurt them i need help please su

[redshark1]

Hi, all my Malaysian Trumpet Snails have gone from my Clown Loach aquarium but my loaches are 8" specimens.

The only tank (out of six I have) that has lots of these snails is my heavily planted 40 gallon which only has 2 fish and very little feeding. I have come to accept them as they do no harm.

I would not use chemicals to kill them as people I know have had terrible experiences, losing their fish.

I used to believe that these snails thrived on excess food but as I have no excess food they must feed on something else, perhaps fish poop. The plants are untouched.

[NancyD]

Trumpet snails are nocturnal for the most part & some are actually useful to keep the substrate aerated. But you can control them. You can try using a lettuce leaf or piece of zucchini to bait them & remove them. Use a fork, chopstick or rock to hold veg on the substrate. Put it in at night, remove in am along with some snails, repeat as needed. Your loaches might like the veg too.

[gaiden]

Snails will reproduce to the amount of food available to them. If you feed the fish too much the leftovers will be consumed by the snails, and if there is a readily available source of food for your loaches they will be less inclined to hunt for food. Without knowing how often you feed and how often you do water changes, it is hard to give any further advice.

[Diana]

You can try feeding less. This will do 2 things: Feed less snails, and encourage the fish to hunt their own food. My Clown Loaches learned to suck the meat out of Malaysian Trumpet Snails, and will eat all the snails I add to their tank, including garden snails.
Kuhlie Loaches have really small mouths. I suspect they can eat baby snails such as pond snails and Rams Horns, but I sure doubt they will be much use against MTS.

Eventually the Clowns will get much larger than the Kuhlies and they will be better in separate tanks. If you set up a tank for the Kuhlie Loaches you can make sure it does not have MTS by dipping the plants in Alum (google for the recipe). Do not transfer any substrate or filter media to the new tank, baby MTS hide in the sponges and floss.