Snails

55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those low
life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.

What do I use to kill them. Mostly cone shaped snails, no bigger than
1/2 inch. Don't say buy a snail killing fish as I already tried that. I
declare chemical war!

And once they're dead, dead, dead how do I get the chemical out of my
tank?

Thanks, in advance.

"Boris" wrote in message
news:Ly_9c.25099$wl1.1067@fed1read06...
| 55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those
low
| life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.
|


Despite your plea, I'd recommend visiting www.loaches.com, many
loaches are voracious snail killers.
That said, there are several products, "Had-a-Snail" is one I've
used. After dosing is complete, use carbon and water changes if
you're concerned about chemical residue. Be warned, these products
can have undesired effects on other living things.
http://www.bigalsonline.com/search/?...ywords1=snails

(watch wrap)

billy

"Boris" wrote in message
news:Ly_9c.25099$wl1.1067@fed1read06...
55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those low
life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.

What do I use to kill them. Mostly cone shaped snails, no bigger than
1/2 inch. Don't say buy a snail killing fish as I already tried that. I
declare chemical war!

And once they're dead, dead, dead how do I get the chemical out of my
tank?

Thanks, in advance.

I have the same problem and was advised to drop a piece of cucumber
(elasticated to a stone) into the tank at lights out. Remove the cucumber
before lights on and millions of snails would be attached (to the cucumber
not the stone). I haven't tried it myself yet!

HTH - Dave

Boris wrote:

55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those low
life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.


Why would you want to kill them painfully? Sounds a bit nasty to me!
Loaches are the trick, failing that pick them out. Snails aren't necessarily
a bad thing!

Geezer From Freezer" wrote in message
...


Boris wrote:

55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those low
life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.


Why would you want to kill them painfully? Sounds a bit nasty to me!
Loaches are the trick, failing that pick them out. Snails aren't
necessarily
a bad thing!

Well, I can't think of a more painful way to die than being
eaten alive by a loach...

every once in while I put an algae tablet in to feed my otto's and the
snails come running. Then it's easy to grab alot of them out of the tank.

Paige

I seem to have the opposite problem in I can't keep snails alive in my
tank. Between my loaches and festivums, snails all gone. Every month
or so I add a few dozen to the tank and it is like the dinner bell goes
off. I think the festivums have taught the keyholes how to hunt them
too because lately they have been joining the fest!

Vicki

coelacanth wrote:

Well, I can't think of a more painful way to die than being
eaten alive by a loach...

Being eaten is a quicker death than chemicals thats for sure!

"Boris" wrote in message
news:Ly_9c.25099$wl1.1067@fed1read06...
55g tank. artificial plants, community fish. Infested with those low
life snails. I want to kill them all. And painfully if possible.

What do I use to kill them. Mostly cone shaped snails, no bigger than
1/2 inch. Don't say buy a snail killing fish as I already tried that. I
declare chemical war!

And once they're dead, dead, dead how do I get the chemical out of my
tank?

Thanks, in advance.

CHEMICAL WARFARE
Your weapons of choice, to be truly effective require you to remove the
fish and filter to another location while the battle is underway. Note
that any snail eggs hiding in your filter will become terrorists sneaking
back in when you think you are safe. Note that all my remarks below are
strictly from what I've read or heard and I have no practical experience
with any of them, except the last one (which doesn't meet your chemical
specification).

Your prime choices are copper, bleach, salt and heat, each having their
pros & cons.

Copper is (I think) the most toxic. Pro is speed. Con is there is some
difficulty in rinsing it all away (tends to stick to surfaces) and it's
also toxic to fish in slightly higher dosages than used to kill snails.

Bleach is an all-purpose killer. Pro is toxicity (even snail eggs). Con
is the dosage is unclear and the amount of rinsing and de-chlor needed to
recover your tank, and any remaining bacteria (in the gravel) would have
all been nuked (bacterial bloom). I use 20 parts water to 1 part bleach
as a bleach dip for items which might have snail eggs. This might be
sufficient for a 'tank dip'.

Salt works like bleach, but not as quickly, dosage is unclear, easier to
rinse away, residue is less harmful.

Hot water rinse (tank tear down). Relatively quick but somewhat labour
intensive. Drain tank. Remove any ornaments to be scrubbed clean and
soaked in bleach elsewhere. Pour in very warm water (100F?), stir gravel
and wait about 20 minutes (let the gravel and bottom glass absorb the
heat). Drain and refill with hot water. The key here is to apply heat
uniformly to all the glass panes at the same time, so they all
expand/contract at the same rate, so the stress on the silicone is
acceptable. To do this, the gravel must all be heated at the same rate
as well, so stir everything around. Let it sit for an hour. Drain and
refill with warm water. You now need to do the reverse, cooling the
gravel so the bottom glass is not significantly hotter than the side
panes. Alternately leave the entire tank alone until the temperature
gets cool enough (around 90-100F), and then drain and reset normally.
The cheaper your tank (thin glass) the more prone it is to crack due to
uneven expansion. Gravel has tremendous heat storage capacity. You can
easily burn yourself by putting your hand into gravel, shortly after
draining hot water from it.

A variant of the hot water kill, (if you are a patient person) is to dial
your heaters to the max and wait. It might take extra heaters and
several days, but snails have a finite temperature range, and you will
eventual kill them all. Your fish are of course elsewhere during this
procedure. I haven't tried this one either, but I'm pretty sure that it
would work.

Are those snail eating loaches starting to sound a bit better ? ;~)
NetMax

Vicki S wrote:
I seem to have the opposite problem in I can't keep snails alive in my
tank. Between my loaches and festivums, snails all gone. Every month
or so I add a few dozen to the tank and it is like the dinner bell goes
off. I think the festivums have taught the keyholes how to hunt them
too because lately they have been joining the fest!

Vicki

Hi Vicki,

if you want to keep snails with your loaches, i have found a species
that manages to survive quite well( throught the fact that i have 6
hungry clown loaches in my tank ). Look up neritina natalensis. I
don't know what area you live in, but i heard from a contact that they
are illegal in the US....we get then all over the place here in Canada.

Tim