Habitat - Indoor :: Attack of the SNAILS

[Spike 7.62]

Earlier today I was fiddling with my sliders and nothing seemed amiss. Some weeks ago I brought home some aquatic plants, and I noticed a lone snail would roam the tank. He'd pop up from time to time, and I figured something in there would eat him.

Tonight, I got home around midnight and there must be at least 50 itty bitty snails.. everywhere. On the tank walls, on the faux rock formation, on the heater, etc. Clearly, snail reproduction is something to be reckoned.

I'm wondering, how would this change the dynamics of my tank's ecosystem? The RES are still small and somewhat timid, I have to kill a minnow for them to eat flesh. I don't know whether they will hunt these snails soon or not, I suspect they will though. Snails must be good for them, there's just so many.

I could seek-and-destroy all snails, leave them to the RES, or transfer them to the bigger tank where the other turtles will surely gobble them up. What's your opinion?

-spike

[BullDog]

Snails can take over a tank. I bought some aquatic plants too, and put them in my little 2 gallon tank. Pretty soon 3 snails turned into about 50! Whenever I put a plant in the turtle tank, I'd rinse it off best I could, and remove any eggs or snails. A couple times I found 3 or 4 snails in the filter, and removed them, so the snails never took over the turtle tanks. Now, they aren't necessarily bad, but I don't think they help any. When I had them in my little 2 gallon, they pooped more than the fish

Since there's already a bunch of itty bitty snails, they are going to be hard to get rid of, especially if they get into the filter. I would say hope your turts go after them, because if you ever want to get rid of them all you'll likely have to do a full tank clean!

[gwennie]

It depends on what type of snail you've got in there - if it's malaysian trumpet snails or ramshorn snails, your turtles can and probably will end up eating them...as to when, that's really up to them If you have a small tank, having a snail colony would be adding to your bioload in the tank. They're pretty wasteful little buggers, as much as people think they're cleaners.

I have a separate tank I use to breed guppies and ramshorns in, since ramshorns are easily eaten by even younger RES. Malaysian trumpet snails have a slightly harder shell when they get older, so younger RES might have a harder time with them.

If they're physids (I hope they're not XD), you should try to kill as many as you can - they're really fast breeders and they're the ones that usually end up ruining filters. They lay eggs in little sacs that are usually attached to something in the tank. If you see one, either net it out or try to destroy it.

In the mean time, you can go around and crush the ones you see against the glass, and your turts will probably eat what you've crushed ^^ They should be quite easy to kill that way, but there's probably a lot more that you haven't seen yet.

If you want to stop them from getting into your filter, you could put a piece of pantyhose stocking over the intake (one of the little footy kind usually work). Baby snails are really small and usually float around till they get under gravel and then spend some time there eating until they grow big enough to come up - when they're that small they can get sucked into your filter and then end up growing there and destroy the motor.

I've got a stocking tied over a small filter I have in my snail/guppy breeder tank and have had no problems with them getting through that.

You'll just have to watch your turts and make sure they aren't strong enough to get the stocking off yet.

Or you could use a prefilter sponge as well, that should stop them.

[Spike 7.62]

Gwennie, after some research it appears they are physids.


^I took this just now.

I once saw my RES eat one some weeks ago, and I fed the one pictured above to my red belly slider, so they can be eaten.. but I don't want the extra waste in the tank. I've got a filter rated for 40 gals in a 20gal tank, but I want to keep the water nice. I'll try out the panty hose idea too.

Thanks guys for the info!

-spike

[gwennie]

Yeah those little buggers breed fast XD Most folks I know consider them pests. If there are any bigger ones in your tank, try feeding them to your bigger turtles when you see them - the babies can be easily crushed against the side of your tanks.

I had some of them as stowaways when I bought my initial batch of ramshorns and for the first few weeks I was killing one every few days as I saw them come up.