Controlling snail populations

Weasel1960 · Sep 13, 2020

I am reading as many threads and articles as possible before beginning my first new build (last one was along time ago when there was no rock, coral and HOB was only method of filtration). Around that same time I had. Fresh water tank. I bought some live plants that had a couple of snails...I think snails are related to rabbits if you know what I mean. Soon I had 1000s of little black dots all over my aquarium, was a long battle to get rid of them all.

I understand their value in a reef tank, do recommended CUC snails reproduce abundantly? If so what is the best way to control the population? Are there types that don’t?

WV Reefer · Sep 13, 2020

Weasel1960 said:
I am reading as many threads and articles as possible before beginning my first new build (last one was along time ago when there was no rock, coral and HOB was only method of filtration). Around that same time I had. Fresh water tank. I bought some live plants that had a couple of snails...I think snails are related to rabbits if you know what I mean. Soon I had 1000s of little black dots all over my aquarium, was a long battle to get rid of them all.

I understand their value in a reef tank, do recommended CUC snails reproduce abundantly? If so what is the best way to control the population? Are there types that don’t?

there are types of SW snails that are pests but I’ve never seen any that multiply like pest FW snails do

Sisterlimonpot · Sep 13, 2020

In a reef tank, snails lay eggs but seldom do they make it. There are a few species that will multiply and take off, but from that perspective they self regulate based on the food source, and luckily for us the food source is what we don't want to see in our tanks. So they will populate to meet the demand of algae and not get to the point of plague proportions.

PicassoClown04 · Sep 13, 2020

Salt snails tend to self regulate, and some species never produce viable offspring in the tank at all. My stomatella snails are very good reproducers and I have maybe 2 dozen on the glass at night since I got 3-4 hitchhikers. I seldom see them during the day and the spawning events are very cool to watch. I doubt you’ll have snail plagues in your reef like you did in fresh water. Those mystery snails sure do like to take over!