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Snails, you either love em or hate em….

Many people consider the snail a pest in the freshwater aquarium and some types will happily devour your aquarium plants.  They can however provide some benefits by eating the dead and dying vegetation and eating debris collected in the substrate.

There are several types of snails commonly found in the freshwater aquarium.

Trumpet

These have spiral shells and are usually found on the glass just below the water line in the morning when you turn the lights on.  They rarely eat plants.  They burrow in the substrate during the day and come out to feed at night. One method of control for these guys, is to simply collect them from the glass in the morning.  This won't eliminate them but it will keep the population under control.  By eating debris on the substrate, these snails can help maintain the water quality.  These snails are live bearers.  Photo courtesy of DaFishDude.

Ramshorn

A nice looking snail, but will happily devour your plants.  They come in red, black and even checkered patterns.  Reproduce very fast.

Pond snail

These can easily become a plague in the aquarium.  Their shells are shaped like a football.  They usually are introduced with live food, or plants and reproduce very very fast.  They are also voracious plant eaters.  Photo courtesy of DaFishDude.

Apple snails

Controlling the snail population

Not always an easy task, however here are some suggestions:


• Snail eating fish - The first and best suggestion in my opinion is the Introduction of snail eating fish. Many of the Loaches are reported to help control the snail population, such as the Clown Loach, (Botia Macracanthus)shown in the picture.  This fish will quite happily dine on your snails.  They can get to be rather large though, so I would not recommend them for a tank of less than 30 gallons.  The Skunk Loach (Botia horae) is another of the snail eating Loach family.  They also get to be fairly large.  The Upsidedown Catfish (Synodontis multipunctatus) also eats snails, again can become 10 inches (25 cm.) in length.  Puffers (Tetraodon species) also do well at eating snails, but consider that many are very aggressive and you need to carefully choose their tank mates.  Many of the puffers also require brackish water.  For you cichlid lovers, the Malawi Cichlids (Pseudotropheus Melanochromis) will also eat snails.
• Control through food - Put a small saucer with lettuce or a couple of fish food pellets attached.  Dim the lights or turn them off.  After a few hours the snails will collect on the saucer and you can remove them.  This will not eliminate the snails but can keep the population in check.  If you have lot's of bottom feeders this may not work since the bottom feeding fish may devour the food before the snails can get to it.  One alternative that I have heard about, but not tried, is to take a 35 mm film cannister and punch holes in the lid.  Put the bait in the cannister and then remove after several hours or overnight.  This will keep your bottom feeders from eating the bait and the holes will allow the snails to enter.
• Complete tear down of tank. - This is pretty drastic but many have resorted to this to get rid of the pesky snail.  If you are going to do this, take out the gravel, decorations, etc. and boil them in water.  After the boiling, carefully remove the snail shells.  They can alter the pH of your aquarium water if not removed.  Put the filter in a bucket of water with a 10 mg/l (1%) potassium permanganate solution for one hour (with the filter running) then rinse the filter with clean water.  Clean the hood also, you could even have snail eggs there. Wash the tank with the same solution or a 5% bleach/water solution and rinse thoroughly.
• Chemical snail removers - This is the least recommended method of snail removal.  There are several products on the market which can be found at your local aquarium supply store that will remove snails.  The rapid die off of snails caused by these products will alter your water's chemistry and in my opinion highly stress your fish, making them very susceptible to disease.  Only use this method if all other methods fail and follow it up with frequent water changes.

Initial prevention

Snails are usually introduced into the aquarium with live plants or live food.  A simple procedure of dipping your plants in a 10 mg/l potassium permanganate solution for 10 to 15 minutes then rinsing them with clean water prior to their introduction to the aquarium will get rid of snails and snail eggs.  An alternative method would be to soak the plants for 2 to 3 minutes in a 5% bleach solution for 2 to 3 minutes, then rinse the plants in water with chlorine remover added (the same chlorine remover that you would use in your aquarium).

Controlling their food supply by not over feeding will also help control the snail population.  Don't feed your fish any more than they can eat in two minutes.

Remember that all snails are not bad, the best solution is population control