Copper or betel nut safe for sewellia?
Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 4:22 am
I posted here 4 months ago that I was starting to see tiny ramshorn snails in my sewellia tank. I tried picking them out by hand, trapping them, baiting them with vegetables, nothing decreased their numbers and in fact there are hundreds, maybe thousands of them in my tank covering the walls and the stones which grow algae for the sewellia to graze.
I wasn't feeding the tank because the sewellia never ate anything but the algae so the snail numbers were not due to overfeeding. The sewellia were doing great at first - I had 2 batches of babies appear but in the past few weeks I've noticed the fish seem to be thinner and fry were dying. I started feeding dry Repashy which seemed to work well for the sewellia - but I fear also for the snails. I finally decided to break down the tank and move the sewellia to a new, longer tank. It's been 2 days and I just found a tiny ramshorn snail in the new tank. ARGH!
The only thing that moved from the old tank to the new was the sewellia but catching them was very challenging and I suspect a snail hitchhiked on a net or my hand. These snails never get bigger than 2-3 mm and start even smaller. I've never seen eggs - they must be microscopic.
I need to put something in the tank to kill snails. I've narrowed it down to Planaria Zero which is a Japanese product that contains betel nut or Seachem Cupramine which contains copper. Does anyone have any experience using either of these products with sewellia? I hate to put them at risk but they are not doing well with all the snails in the tank. Very very frustrating. Thank you for any help.
I wasn't feeding the tank because the sewellia never ate anything but the algae so the snail numbers were not due to overfeeding. The sewellia were doing great at first - I had 2 batches of babies appear but in the past few weeks I've noticed the fish seem to be thinner and fry were dying. I started feeding dry Repashy which seemed to work well for the sewellia - but I fear also for the snails. I finally decided to break down the tank and move the sewellia to a new, longer tank. It's been 2 days and I just found a tiny ramshorn snail in the new tank. ARGH!
The only thing that moved from the old tank to the new was the sewellia but catching them was very challenging and I suspect a snail hitchhiked on a net or my hand. These snails never get bigger than 2-3 mm and start even smaller. I've never seen eggs - they must be microscopic.
I need to put something in the tank to kill snails. I've narrowed it down to Planaria Zero which is a Japanese product that contains betel nut or Seachem Cupramine which contains copper. Does anyone have any experience using either of these products with sewellia? I hate to put them at risk but they are not doing well with all the snails in the tank. Very very frustrating. Thank you for any help.