How do you get rid of unwante3d snails?

[[email protected]]

Hi! I recently bought some live plants and got some pond snails with
them. I don't want the pond snails to eat my amazon sword (ever since I
put a plant food tablet on it it has grown some and turned greener -
thanks Ellaine!) or hornwort plants. The hornwort has grown relatively
well while it's older tissue which was first introduced into this
particular tank is dying off. I hope hornwort isn't like the elodea
densa I had before where it would grow some then slowly die off and
eventually was gone. I have instructions in an old tetra getting
started pamphlet that say to put a tetra tabimin tablet on an upside
down saucer in the middle of the tank at night and a few hours later
all of the snails in the tank are on the saucer eating the tablet.
Trouble is that tetra tabimin is no longer sold - any recommended
substitutions? I'd like this method to get rid of the pond snails.
Crushed or in other words decomposing snails is supposed to pollute the
water drastically. My pond snails have reproduced already and I don't
even bother trying to destroy the eggs - never have and might never
still. Also - I dislike hurting animals at all but am making an
exception here except I still do not want to do it violently as I
dislike violence. I like to watch some professional wrestling to see
the wrestler's antics but ever since I knew it was scripted I stopped
being horrified by it and even look forward to seeing it often (sorry
about going a bit off topic there). Any thoughts anyone on how I can
reasonably get rid of these pond snails? Thanks!

[Elaine T]

wrote:
> Hi! I recently bought some live plants and got some pond snails with
> them. I don't want the pond snails to eat my amazon sword (ever since I
> put a plant food tablet on it it has grown some and turned greener -
> thanks Ellaine!) or hornwort plants. The hornwort has grown relatively
> well while it's older tissue which was first introduced into this
> particular tank is dying off. I hope hornwort isn't like the elodea
> densa I had before where it would grow some then slowly die off and
> eventually was gone. I have instructions in an old tetra getting
> started pamphlet that say to put a tetra tabimin tablet on an upside
> down saucer in the middle of the tank at night and a few hours later
> all of the snails in the tank are on the saucer eating the tablet.
> Trouble is that tetra tabimin is no longer sold - any recommended
> substitutions? I'd like this method to get rid of the pond snails.
> Crushed or in other words decomposing snails is supposed to pollute the
> water drastically. My pond snails have reproduced already and I don't
> even bother trying to destroy the eggs - never have and might never
> still. Also - I dislike hurting animals at all but am making an
> exception here except I still do not want to do it violently as I
> dislike violence. I like to watch some professional wrestling to see
> the wrestler's antics but ever since I knew it was scripted I stopped
> being horrified by it and even look forward to seeing it often (sorry
> about going a bit off topic there). Any thoughts anyone on how I can
> reasonably get rid of these pond snails? Thanks!

Glad your sword appreciated the fertilizer. :-)

Supposedly a lettuce leaf works for collecting snails. My mystery and
red ramshorn snails also adore Hikari algae wafers so you could try
those. Really, any sinking food on a saucer should work fine if the
fish don't get it all first.

To rid a tank of snails completely I've always bought a loach or two.
Most Botia spp. will happily snack on snails. FW puffers are supposed
to be expert snail eaters as well.

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com