How do I get rid of pond snails in the same tank as mystery snails

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fabsroman

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Sep 30, 2008
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West Friendship, MD
I have some mystery snails in a 55 gallon tank with a bunch of plants in it. Seems as though I got a pond snail in a plant that I recently bought, and they are starting to get out of control. I want to get rid of the pond snails, without hurting the mystery snails.

I am using clown loaches and angelicus loaches in a different tank to keep the MTS snails at a realistic population, and was wondering if I could put 3 or 4 yo yo loaches in the 55 to get rid of the pond snails. The mystery snails are all about the size of a quarter, and I have read that it is somewhat tough for loaches to eat snails with doors on their shells. So, would this be an option. There are about 20 mystery snails in the tank. Would the number of mystery snails in the tank tend to reduce any aggressiveness from the loaches (i.e., it would be spread across 20 snails instead of just a couple)?
 
jackiomy

jackiomy

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Jul 6, 2008
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I put a carrot or piece of zuchinni in a glass jar or bottle, leave it over night and in the morning toss the snails and rebait the jar. If your mystery snails are that big try to find a bottle they won't fit in or just take them off the bait before you toss it.
 
Y

Yadokari

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Feb 10, 2008
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I manually remove the smalls by either crushing them when I see it or using the veggie trick. I also use spixi snails, because they seem to love eating snail eggs... (even their own sometimes!)

It helps keep the population down but will this really remove all of them? Probably not, but a majority of it will be cleared.
 
Lupin

Lupin

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Some people here have assassin snails that may answer your problem just as much as removing the snails manually and limiting food rations.
 
J double R

J double R

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Jan 13, 2007
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Yadokari said:
I manually remove the smalls by either crushing them when I see it or using the veggie trick. I also use spixi snails, because they seem to love eating snail eggs... (even their own sometimes!)

It helps keep the population down but will this really remove all of them? Probably not, but a majority of it will be cleared.
Click to expand...
the problem is here, is that spixis, once established, can be as prolific as pond snails, thus repeating the problem... lol.

i found the easiest and best bait to be regular iceberg lettuce, blanched slightly.. take a small coke bottle, cut the top off where it begins to taper down, flip it, and shove it back into the bottle, so it creates a funnel into the main portion of the bottle.. place a piece of said lettuce into the bottle, fill with water, and submerge (you might have to assemble it under water to get all the air out). simple trap method.
 
red_wall

red_wall

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Jun 15, 2008
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Limit food and use the trap method described above. I've given up on trying to fight my pond snails. I just let them live peacefully until they get to the breaking point, then during a WC I take all I can find and squish them.
They love to assemble on my fake rock for some reason. They're all at the top, turning my room into a pornographic movie sight... secret snail conspiracies to pollute the minds of children I think.
 
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fabsroman

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Sep 30, 2008
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West Friendship, MD
Thanks for all the replies guys. Luckily, I have been squashing them since I saw the first one, so I don't see many of them at a time. However, I have been seeing some small ones, and I did see some eggs today. So, this looks like it is going to be a tough battle. The big problem is that the tanks are at my parents because our townhouse is too tight, so I don't see them for a couple of days sometimes. I'm scared to see what I will find after I have been away for a couple of days.

I think I am going to try the coke bottle trap to see if that will help keep the numbers down. Luckily, if I transfer any plants into my other tank, I have enough loaches in there that they should be able to take care of the problem.
 
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