Crazy prolific snails!!

Thub · Apr 14, 2020

Guys. I have a snail problem. It's worse than I ever had in my freshwater tanks. I have a biocube 29, and there are probably 500-1000 on the glass alone. And I find new egg sacs daily.
Is there a creature I can keep which will hunt the babies, while not, itself, reproducing uncontrollably? I've got an ocellaris clown, a bicolor blend and a banggai cardinal a of whom I'd prefer to keep happy. Thoughts?

Skynyrd Fish · Apr 14, 2020

Pictures of the snails please.

cloak · Apr 14, 2020

Just get some vinyl hosing and siphon them out. Do this for 3 or 4 days in a row and you should be able to put a significant dent in the population.

tacopaco · Apr 14, 2020

Thub said:
Guys. I have a snail problem. It's worse than I ever had in my freshwater tanks. I have a biocube 29, and there are probably 500-1000 on the glass alone. And I find new egg sacs daily.
Is there a creature I can keep which will hunt the babies, while not, itself, reproducing uncontrollably? I've got an ocellaris clown, a bicolor blend and a banggai cardinal a of whom I'd prefer to keep happy. Thoughts?

Just went through this, only way I found was to clean, clean, clean. They got in my pumps, you could hear the pumps chatter from it and my piping, clogging my return. Once I started removing them it eventually slowed down. PIA, but I had to tear down things in sections and clean them and their eggs out. Every day for a week I took a couple of hours to clean a specific area until they were removed for the most part.

Thub · Apr 14, 2020

Here's a closeup- excuse the crazy algae at the moment. The tank is fairly new, and I'm looking for a balance there too.
Siphoning/ manual removal has only ever worked as a very temporary solution. Also, an excuse for a new creature would be awesome

Skynyrd Fish · Apr 14, 2020

Those are good. They don’t get much bigger. They will spike then die back to a sustainable number.

Crustaceon · Apr 14, 2020

It looks like Zebra trochus. They’ll have lots of babies one day and then the population will stabilize about a month or two later. Been there, done that.