I was about to say. If you have pest snails, just get a pea puffer. Most effective way to eradicate snails lol. I actually recommend starting a colony of pest snails first before adding puffers, especially those snails that are prolific breeders. Your puffer will always have food then.
Keep in mind. The amount of ponds you find (natural little ponds) are full of snails and healthy plants .. its all about a balance. I dont think any snails are pest unless they hurting fish with parasites. as for plants, they usual only eat dead leaves.
Ramshorns have eaten healthy plants in my tank. Trumpet snails never eat healthy plants only dead ones. Trumpet snails are pretty much impossible to get rid of once you have them.
Still one of my favorite videos on your channel; I re-watch it every few months. This video has helped me help so many of my own customers, in troubleshooting their tanks. You are an amazing person and a priceless resource to our hobby. Thank you. For being you, for doing what you do, and sharing your love for the hobby, and inspiring me and others like me, every day. Happy New Year~
At one time in my fish life, I had snails that actually caught guppies to eat. NO JOKE. They would float and if one could attach to an eating or sick guppy, the others would pile on and eat it. I had never heard of such a thing. Now, I just have a mystery snail. Love him/it.
I once havent fed my 2 angelfishes for a couple days on purpose so they turn to eating bladder snails and snail eggs. Now they happily pluck snails keeping a balance in my aquarium. Angelfishes are curious eaters so definitely introduce those snails to them 😄.
I love snails, they eat the extra food and help keep smaller tanks clean and less likely to crash. I think they're cute too. Also if you're going to eradicate your snails, remember to feed less food because there won't be snails left to eat it all and it will rot and produce ammonia. (Yes that's why you had so many snails, you were overfeeding.)
I had Malaysian trumpet snails sneak into an aquarium years ago, had several aquariums since, and the offspring of those original few are still going today... Even after having no tanks for a long time, they survived in a bucket of gravel in the garage for a very long time. Now I have a large turtle and American cichlid set up, my musk turtle spends his days digging for snails. The snails are also a huge help on breaking down solids. Have also put a few in my African tank. The thing is with these snails, you don't even know they're there, until you clean your canister and start picking them out.
Thanks for the content. Really appreciate it. I had a few snails in my 25g aquarium and wanted to get rid of them. After seeing this video I decided to keep them and cut back on feeding and doing some more maintenance on my tanks more frequently. Thanks again
I see this vlog is nearly 3 years old BUT what GREAT, lasting info!! Thank you so, SO much. You went well beyond every other vlog I have watched and I feel more secure in my own knowledge now for what I am dealing with. One thing I didn't catch is, how long to decrease feeding to get rid of the trumpet snails? Boy, did I mess up putting in four little snails, which are now enjoying the sand as a nursery in the hundreds! Word to the unwise....do your research FIRST! :0)~
Rachel you should really do a video about the good and really sweet looking snails for the aquarium, like rabbit snails, Brotia Pagodula, different nerites, etc.. should be an awesome video... keep it going. Love the vids you're making
Dani I love my little horned nerite it's nice and smaller than the bigger nerite. I hope I can get more horned nerites. I also like the Japanese helmet looking nerite it's interesting. I miss my lovely pair of mini rabbit snails. I should have known better when I added the assassin snail to take care of the trumpet problem. I want my mini rabbit snails. ive seen some Brotia at MLF store but I I think they're too big for my 10 gallon. I wanna try to keep things small
This was excellent! Thank you!! I had my community tank controlled with 1 mystery and a few nerites. Bought some plants at the aquarium and noticed 24 hours later TONS of what looked like baby snails on the log the java was on so I immediately took it out and returned to store. Needless to say, I suddenly started finding what I now know to be ramshorn and bladder snails everywhere. My tank looks amazing but I do have plants that are suddenly not doing well so this was great info for me to take some steps. Love snails but of course don’t need hundreds and hundreds of them. So again thanks for the info!!
Great Video! Extremely helpful! I have been in the fish hobby for about 25 years and I have avoided planting aquariums because I had a huge snail problem once many years ago. I recently decided to plant one of my 8 aquariums, I rinsed each plant very well before putting them in the aquarium; well about 3 months after I planted the aquarium I found one snail with 4 clutches of eggs inside a clear jar I had for decoration. I removed the jar. I didn’t see any other snails or eggs anywhere else, but I’m not very confident because they are very difficult to spot and I have black sand in the planted aquarium which helps them camouflage even more. Thanks for these great tips. I’ll definitely be setting a trap!
I've got bladder snails in my setup, but they don't seem to be hurting my plants at all. (as a matter of fact they really helped knock down my hair algae problem)
Thanks Rachel. That was really helpful. Got a few bladder snails when I added plants to my newly cycled tank. I left them as I figured they would help clear up some algae. They have done a good job, but have increased in number very quickly. So some of them have got to go. Was thinking of adding a pea puffer, but I don't think it will be a good fit for my community tank in the long run. The plants seem healthy, so going try increasing my maintenance, and cutting back on my feeding ( have been away from the hobby for 30+yrs, so it will take me a minute to figure that out. )
Very helpful video. I setup my DIY acrylic tank a couple months ago and now have a pond snail population in it. The tank is planted with various val species, java fern, anubias, and some bolbitus. I usually just let the snails live in the tank. It seems that they help a bunch with newly planted tanks since a lot of the plants that I use seem to die back when first introduced to my aquariums. I've also noticed that the longer the aquarium has been setup the smaller the population of snails I'll have remaining. I wasn't sure which snail I had until I watched you video. Without a doubt they are the pond snail so I now have three different pest snails in three different aquariums lol. Trumpets in my bolivian ram tank. These were actually put there on purpose by me. My favorite pest snail. Bladder snails in my Buenos aires tetra tank although there are very few in there. Now pond snails in the platinum angel tank. Not sure if I'll just leave them be and see if their numbers dwindle over time or start to remove them using your trap method or manually but great to know the options. Thank you for the information. I really appreciate all that you do.
This is a great video chicky! When I was new to this hobby I did get lots of snails because I was ridiculously over feeding my tank I learned tons of lessons in the planted tank hobby. What I have learned is all of these snails are a potential threat but if you can not go crazy feeding your fish they all can be beneficial I have three or more species of thes guys and they are kept in check by my every three day feeding regimen. In the past I used to throw in a loach to bring them down in population but now I just do not feed the tank as much and the use of shrimps as cleaners usually out eat these snails so the tanks don't get crazy with them anymore. I have apple snails, trumpets, rams horns the rams get big fast but if you slow the feeding they will stall or slow right down. I love fish tanks and the beauty they bring to your home snails are helpers for me they keep the algae down and my glass clean as crystal Balance with these creatures is key.
Hi Rachel, I really enjoyed this video. I have the bladder and the rams horn snails and I agree with you. They are part of the natural tank but increase happens when something is out of wack! LOL overfeeding, more water changes, and sometimes ,I have plant decay or miss a dead fish. Yep, I hand pick the bladder snails out and keep the rams horns usually. some of mine have a shiny bronze shell. pretty I think
Thanks for the info. Our 20 gallon tank was recently infested with ramshorn snails, likely coincided with an on-line purchase of red-leaf floaters that decayed after several weeks. Although the snails had initially appeared to be pests, I believe they solved our pH problem - the pH would always stay up around 7.8, and I would rather it was
Great info on snails! Thanks Rachel. The MTS do a wonderful job of keeping my sand substrate clean and turned over. My tank even smells cleaner after I added them and my stem plants seem to be doing better. I just got my first rams horn snail 🐌, a pretty leopard pattern. He hitched a ride on some java moss I purchased. I'm quite impressed with how well he keeps the algae cleaned off my larger Anubias.
Thank you for this. I got a "bonsai" tree from my LFS which I'm absolutely in love with however it came with some hitchhikers and now they're eating my new growth on my plants. I like that my mystery snails eat dying leaves, but these other guys are punks! I've been manually removing them but I'm gonna try the water bottle trick tonight. Thanks again! Love your channel!
Very informative video. I kinda like the snails and the trumpets are my favorites out of the ones that I've picked up from purchasing plants from the LFS. I've been lucky and haven't had them go crazy in either of my tanks. I guess it's been luck or routine maintenance
The water in my area is so soft that bladder snails do not manage to reproduce and they die pretty quickly. This happened with bladder snails that came along with some plants I ordered. While it does drastically limit the amount of species of fish I can keep. It also makes snail pest control very easy :D
I found a bunch of beautiful snails randomly in my local little park. There was at least 50 of them and they honestly looked dumped into a small little water patch from sprinklers. I scooped them up and gave them a new home. Many didn’t make it but the ones that did, they have the beautiful iridescent green and brown shells and I love them so much. Two of them are also as you described about as big as nickels the others are just really fast and possibly bladder snails compared to the very slow big looking snails. So two different snails and I’m so happy with them! The best find I ever found in the local park was free aquatic snails! :)
Malaysians trumpet snails are great, i guess i do a good job on not overfeeding because i don't see many lately, i hope they are not all dead! Keep up with your great videos!
Awesome info! I have MTS taking over a 20 gallon , and those bladder snails trying to take over my planted pond...but I'll be trying that bottle trap tonight!
I wanted to thank you for identifying snails for us. I finally have a scientific name for the snail I was trying to id - the mini ramshorn. I thought I had a bunch of ramshorns but they didn’t hold their shells the right way or grow very big. Now I know why! I don’t mind them any and actually have several pests and bugs in my tanks. Nerites, mysteries, mini ramshorns, freshwater limpet of some sort, copepods... I find them just as interesting as the other creatures in the tank. Of course, the nerites and mysteries were purchased. I do miss my little bladder snail. It passed away before I got any babies.
I've tried a variety of foods to 'attract' the snails to the traps. The best I found was banana skin, the browner, the better. Will cloud up your water for a few days, but works the best.
Thank you! You are so informative and thorough. I just found two snails in my tank. I think I’ll keep an eye on them. As long as they don’t eat my plants, we are ok.
I walked in to my local fish store, and saw a tank they had that was infested with Malaysian trumpet snails, but it just so happened that I had spent weeks looking online for some for sale with no luck. You should’ve seen the look on the owners face when I told him that I actually wanted them on purpose. 😂 I got a small number for free, and I’ve had them for years along with some blue leopard rams horn with only 1 outbreak. 10/10 would do it again
Rachel thank you for your videos, I want to one day open my own freshwater fish store in my city, there are not many options and your videos inspire me. This is a true hobby for me and I hope I can be like you one day
I have a dirtied aquarium with a lot of plants, and thousands of Malaysian trumpet snails. I don’t think I overfeed. I think they’re just thriving on the soil and plants. Thoughts?
Great video. I had a problem with buying the wrong plants (ludwigia repens) for my lighting and ended up with lots of diatoms and dead leaves. Combine that with apparently overfeeding fussy fish (some prefer flakes over NLS pellets) and now I'm constantly removing 10 or more bladder snails a day from my 20g high tank. I picked up one of those ISTA snail traps and am planning on getting some amano shrimp to assist with getting the bottom cleaned up. My nerite snails are doing a good job on the glass. Vacuuming and 50% water change each week. Really hoping that the trap and shrimp will do the trick. Hunting bladder snails with a turkey baster is a good time killer though ...
just brought 10 snails and added then came across this ..... oh joy .... wondering if ive made a mistake . sod it ... got 10 new friends and to be honest looking forward to having loads more
Thanks for the great advice! I just recently found my first few in my new tank after heavy planting I believe they're Leopard ramshorns I've just put them in my quarantine tank as a maintenance crew!
Kuhli loach's have done quite well in my community for killing off bladder snails. They love the eggs. Kuhli's have become my favorite bottom feeder. In groups of 20 plus there great for string up that top layer. Ill agree, i dont consider snails to be pests at all. I find them essential in my dirted tanks. As you say, its an indicator.
Khulis wont harm the larger snails. What they do is eliminate all the eggs and very small snails before their shells harden. They are only a tool to manage pest snails in a manner thats beneficial to your system. Nor will you see them do this as they hunt when its totally dark. Its what they do in nature. So all you have to do is remove the larger ones and your problem is solved. Water bottle trap is still the easiest way to catch adults. Clown loaches kill every snail, inducing those you want to keep.
+Andrew Ingalls Watson never wanted to keep snails, they're a pest to me and they eat plants, destroyed my amazon swords so that's when I got clowns to rid them. Never had a snail problem since.
VERY helpful video. So now I think I have bladder snails, but I also have very small black ones, no clue what they are. The little black ones seem to be multiplying the fastest. I really don't want to squish them. Maybe I could move them to spare tank. Do they need a cycled tank?
I have a huge colony of Malaysian trumpets in my sand substrate aquarium. I never had issues with my sand thx to those these little guys. But I control their population so their numbers don't overwhelm my system.
Thank you Rachel, I put 5 rams horn snails in my tank 6 months ago. Within 2 months I had HUNDREDS in the tank. I am still trying to get rid of them. Snail traps didn’t work. I am currently using cucumber in the tank at night which works a bit. I even took all of the stones in the tank out and left it in the sun ( in the Northern Territory australia) for 48 hours but I must have missed one because they are still breeding!
I like snails, the more the better. I have had Cichlids for a long time, which meant I could never have snails. Now I have another tank (10 gallons) with plants, shrimp, and snails and I like the snails just as much as I thought I would. I bought some Ramshorn Snails and they are bigger than I thought; they lay eggs but they don't seem to hatch. I bought a plant and got three teeny tiny itty bitty Malaysian Trumpet Snails, and I would like to have a lot more and bigger ones. I bought some Mystery Snails and those are very interesting to watch eat, and the Gold ones are very outgoing, and one of them laid some eggs last night. 🎉 I also have two Spixi Snails, which are much smaller and slower and not outgoing at all, and one laid a few eggs, maybe 20, on a plant and I have spent weeks waiting for them to hatch, but nothing so far. They might be eating the Ramshorn snail eggs, I don't know. And I have some pond snails that I caught myself and they lay eggs on everything and they hatch. I even have a golden-shelled one, which I hope will have more. If I could find other kinds of snails, then I would get them too.
I definitely need a little clean up crew in my 5 gallon planted tank. I think I am going to add MTS and ramshorn to it. I am the worst at overfeeding. I only have a betta in there at the moment, so when I feed frozen foods there tends to be more than I like leftover, or it hides in the nooks and crannies of my eco complete substrate. I have noticed some detritus worms (which tells me there is too much leftover food). In the future I may add a Nerite variety (but a little unsure at the moment). I think I may add a few other fish as well to help eat the food (something small that goes well with a betta).
I love my snails! I’ve got them in my 29 gallon, 20 gallon, and 10 gallon. They reproduce like crazy 🤘🏽 which is why there is a pea puffer in the 10 gallon to help me maintain them as much as I can 🐌🐌🐌🐌
i bought some marimo balls about a month ago and hadn't realized until later that i had a little hitchhiker lol. now i have a little bladder snail named gary. he hasn't been a pain at all and is so interesting to watch
nice video, thx for sharing. now I know the snails in my aquarium is mini ramshorn. I used to call them ramshorn. anyway those mini ramshorn really multiply a lot lately, lots of eggs on glass and lots of tiny fry. maybe I over feed a little.
Thank You for the easy snail trap! It worked great in one tank but the bristlenose catfish ate all the treats in the 2nd tank - too funny! All the fish enjoyed the trap so much that I ended up removing the lid so they could easily escape and woke up to find my powder blue gourami in it - hee! hee! I love fish :-)
Hi Rachel, again thanks for the video. I've just had peppermint bristlenose catfish lay eggs in a tank in which I have pest snails. On asking for advice as I've not had fish lay before I was told snails eat fish eggs. Have you had experience with this?
I have a bladder snails in my 5gallon betta tank. I don't know if I should be bothered or not. Right now, they seem to help clear up algeas. My tank looks so clean and im loving it. Is it ok to keep them and just control the number? Do they eat healthy plants?
Good to hear you had a great time at the convention .... are mini Ramshorn horns avid reproducers? I have a very small nano tank 3 gallons! wth one Betta S. and how much for one mini Ramshorn horn with shipping?
I'd rather have snails smaller than my Guppies for my planted Aquarium and I'd be happy to have tons and tons of snails to feed to the Pea puffers that I plan to get. What type of snail do you think would be best to keep in my guppy Aquarium. I am getting a 55 gallon with either sand or sand with varying sizes of particles order of some kind. I also want snails of course and shrimp to be in the mix. That was a ratio suggested by Cory Co-op.
Ah! I hadn't even started stocking my first tank and already i have lots of little snail friends. Or, well, they do seem to be bladder snails, so maybe not so friendly... they are gorging themselves on some gunk and sad plant leaves rn. I think the plant will bounce back though, and maybe when i start stocking I will grow tired of the snails, but right now they are fun and cute! Thank you for a very informative video, as always!
When I had my first fish tank I decided to only use live plants. The next day I seen a tiny baby snails. I and my children were all excited about our free snail. Six weeks later it was snail apocalypse. They were everywhere. Now I check my live plants before I buy them.
The comment section is full of cringe. The bladder snails have reproduced in my EMPTY tank for months and there's been no feeding at all. The only thing they can be relying on at this point is algae growth, and they're obviously only skimming over that enough to get enough to grow and reproduce, repeat process for each snail. They don't even take the algae completely off of anything they happen to crawl over, to the point there is no visual evidence they did it at all. I have a total of three small live plants in the last few weeks they've eaten the rotten leaves off of, and then didn't complete that job at all, actually leaving most of the rot to move on and....repopulate. And you guys can "embrace" these snails all you want to. I actually like trumpets myself. But PLEASE WARN your potential victims of the fact you grew your plants in a tank with these snails if you sell them or take them to the pet store. Mine came in on plants and I was not warned and needless to say, wasn't impressed by the seller at all afterwards.
Great vid, very informative and helpful, one thing I'd like to suggest is when describing size it would be much easier for us international viewers (Hi from Australia!) if you could describe sizes in inches or centimeters(cm)/millimeter(mm), it would make for a much easier form of reference since I personally had no idea how big a nickle was, turns out its .835 inches or roughly 21mm, the more you know!
I am 64 and have been keeping aquaria and vivaria since I was 5 years old. I have always liked snails and had them in my freshwater tanks. I have had everything but nerite snails at one time or another; mystery, trumpet, trapdoor, ramshorn and black pond. I have had massive numbers of pond and ramshorns in tanks at times, but just smashing them and letting the fish eat the bodies or tossing to fish like puffers has always done the trick. Squashing the egg cases of pond and ramshorn snails works too. At one time I had about 200 gold mystery snails in a 55 gal and that was too many, but I got three dojo loaches (had no idea they ate snails at the time) and they eliminated all babies. I gave 100 away, so the population without any reproduction going on, gradually dropped to just one large adult. I missed them so I bought another young gold mystery snail and set them up to breed in a nano tank, along with 2 trap door and a bunch of malaysian trumpet snails. Still looking for some nice ramshorn snails to add to that tank. If they get too over populated, I can just toss the young ones to the dojo loaches in the 55 gal. I always have fish that like lots of veggies, so I usually have leaf lettuce or raw spinach floating in the tanks so i have never had an issue with snails eating live plants.
I think the two pest snails I like, are Pond Snails and Ramshorns. The Ramshorns have nice spiral shells, and decorate the substrate after they’ve expired. While Pond Snails have those triangular antennae, the size they get to is a marvel too.
Snails are kind of cool when they don't take over the tank and eat new plants. You say they eat algae? I have a hair algae problem. Would those slow-reproducing snails harm moss balls?
Your trap with catching them in a bottle is amazing and has really helped my snail problem, rather than killing them is there anywhere you can release them without issue
Rachel, what's the best way to stop my nerites from doing a leap of faith from the tank? My parameters are just fine, but they keep trying to escape. I have a rimless tank and don't really want a lid, is there an aquarium-hack that might keep them in?
I know you have a rimless tank for a reason, however, the only thing (besides a tight fitting lid ) that I've seen work to keep your snails from escaping is to take Velcro type tape, the self stick type, and stick it all the way around the outside of the tank top. Make sure you use the rough side , the snails don't like the feel of it and won't cross it. I watched a video on this and the snail just sat at the top of the tank but wouldn't cross over that tape. And it comes in several colors. Hope this helps. 🐚
I bought sword plants from my LFS and these “bladder snails” just started popping up all over my 400L tank randomly. I wasn’t sure what they are as I have 4 mystery snails and I didn’t see no recent clutches above my water level. I have counted and there are about 30+ baby bladder snails haha. Thanks for the video I could diagnose what I have in my tank now And now also incubating a big clutch of mystery snails. It’s CrAzY! All I wanted was a few mystery snails in my large community tank and now I am infested with snails 😅
What's your opinion about malaysian trumpetsnails (apart from what you've already said on the video)? I find them pretty useful - they seem to clean my substrate and gravel extremely efficiently. Of course I collect and isolate the excess.
I added a pea puffer to my tank and it ANNIHILATED all of my pest snails. just empty shells everywhere. It was a savage!
Rank1 lmaooo
I was about to say. If you have pest snails, just get a pea puffer. Most effective way to eradicate snails lol. I actually recommend starting a colony of pest snails first before adding puffers, especially those snails that are prolific breeders. Your puffer will always have food then.
Lol
Cryssa Rose hey! Can you use bladder snails for a continuous cycle like what you do?
Wow..
I actually embrace the "pest" snails. I will purposely introduce them to a tank because I think they are beautiful and very interesting to watch.
Fishy Business I was actually thinking the same, they are beautiful.
You look like a girl use to work with at tj maxx. Is your name Jamie? lmao anyway I'll try the bottle thing
Yep same, I don't even need to clean my tank now the snails keep it so clean and free of algae
I like pest snails too, though I will cull them on occasion if the population size threatens to get out of hand.
they are fast to multiply and you won't like it for sure.
Keep in mind.
The amount of ponds you find (natural little ponds) are full of snails and healthy plants .. its all about a balance.
I dont think any snails are pest unless they hurting fish with parasites.
as for plants, they usual only eat dead leaves.
Definitely
Well yes, but also remember there is also an almost endless supply of decaying plant litter on the bottom of ponds at all times for them to eat too
Ramshorns have eaten healthy plants in my tank. Trumpet snails never eat healthy plants only dead ones. Trumpet snails are pretty much impossible to get rid of once you have them.
Still one of my favorite videos on your channel; I re-watch it every few months. This video has helped me help so many of my own customers, in troubleshooting their tanks.
You are an amazing person and a priceless resource to our hobby.
Thank you.
For being you, for doing what you do, and sharing your love for the hobby, and inspiring me and others like me, every day.
Happy New Year~
At one time in my fish life, I had snails that actually caught guppies to eat. NO JOKE. They would float and if one could attach to an eating or sick guppy, the others would pile on and eat it. I had never heard of such a thing. Now, I just have a mystery snail. Love him/it.
I once havent fed my 2 angelfishes for a couple days on purpose so they turn to eating bladder snails and snail eggs. Now they happily pluck snails keeping a balance in my aquarium. Angelfishes are curious eaters so definitely introduce those snails to them 😄.
I love snails, they eat the extra food and help keep smaller tanks clean and less likely to crash. I think they're cute too. Also if you're going to eradicate your snails, remember to feed less food because there won't be snails left to eat it all and it will rot and produce ammonia. (Yes that's why you had so many snails, you were overfeeding.)
Padric Combest I added the trumpets to stir the sand in my tank and eat up the leftovers. Problem is they're too prolific
Just collect them on the glass after you turn off the lights. Case solved. :)
Teagan Combest I dont know why anyone would kill a snail 😭
they tried to eat my expensive plants...then i beat them to death with hammer :D
i would never harm a snail
I had thousands of snails in my 75 gallon. They were out of control. I added 6 assassin snails and in no time they annihilated my snail problem.
wantsome480 how o.O
Did this leave thousands of empty snail shells?
Rob Lucas yep
That’s actually pretty cool
@@lillian.catherine what do they eat after the snails are depleted?
I had Malaysian trumpet snails sneak into an aquarium years ago, had several aquariums since, and the offspring of those original few are still going today... Even after having no tanks for a long time, they survived in a bucket of gravel in the garage for a very long time.
Now I have a large turtle and American cichlid set up, my musk turtle spends his days digging for snails. The snails are also a huge help on breaking down solids. Have also put a few in my African tank.
The thing is with these snails, you don't even know they're there, until you clean your canister and start picking them out.
Thanks for the content. Really appreciate it. I had a few snails in my 25g aquarium and wanted to get rid of them. After seeing this video I decided to keep them and cut back on feeding and doing some more maintenance on my tanks more frequently.
Thanks again
I see this vlog is nearly 3 years old BUT what GREAT, lasting info!! Thank you so, SO much. You went well beyond every other vlog I have watched and I feel more secure in my own knowledge now for what I am dealing with. One thing I didn't catch is, how long to decrease feeding to get rid of the trumpet snails? Boy, did I mess up putting in four little snails, which are now enjoying the sand as a nursery in the hundreds! Word to the unwise....do your research FIRST! :0)~
Until you have the numbers where you want them to be
I watched this video yesterday, made a snail trap as described and overnight 'caught' about 50 nuisance snails. Thanks for the tip🤗
Rachel you should really do a video about the good and really sweet looking snails for the aquarium, like rabbit snails, Brotia Pagodula, different nerites, etc.. should be an awesome video... keep it going.
Love the vids you're making
Dani I love my little horned nerite it's nice and smaller than the bigger nerite. I hope I can get more horned nerites. I also like the Japanese helmet looking nerite it's interesting. I miss my lovely pair of mini rabbit snails. I should have known better when I added the assassin snail to take care of the trumpet problem. I want my mini rabbit snails. ive seen some Brotia at MLF store but I I think they're too big for my 10 gallon. I wanna try to keep things small
I know they are annoying to some hobbyist, but i really do enjoy watching them slowing nom nom on algae with their cute mouths.
This was excellent! Thank you!! I had my community tank controlled with 1 mystery and a few nerites. Bought some plants at the aquarium and noticed 24 hours later TONS of what looked like baby snails on the log the java was on so I immediately took it out and returned to store. Needless to say, I suddenly started finding what I now know to be ramshorn and bladder snails everywhere. My tank looks amazing but I do have plants that are suddenly not doing well so this was great info for me to take some steps. Love snails but of course don’t need hundreds and hundreds of them. So again thanks for the info!!
Great Video! Extremely helpful! I have been in the fish hobby for about 25 years and I have avoided planting aquariums because I had a huge snail problem once many years ago. I recently decided to plant one of my 8 aquariums, I rinsed each plant very well before putting them in the aquarium; well about 3 months after I planted the aquarium I found one snail with 4 clutches of eggs inside a clear jar I had for decoration. I removed the jar. I didn’t see any other snails or eggs anywhere else, but I’m not very confident because they are very difficult to spot and I have black sand in the planted aquarium which helps them camouflage even more. Thanks for these great tips.
I’ll definitely be setting a trap!
I have one ramshorn, and he does a great job! I got him for free, and he is a blue leopard and I am pretty happy with how well he does :D
nice mine are pink
Mine’s yellow
I love your channel. Very informative and direct to the point.
I've got bladder snails in my setup, but they don't seem to be hurting my plants at all. (as a matter of fact they really helped knock down my hair algae problem)
I added mine on purpose and they have not touched my plants but clean up a lot of uneated food in my fry tank.
I added mine on purpose; delicate plants and hardy alike are untroubled by them. Only sick and algae-covered plants get snail'd. Love em!
I have one (accidently) and i have hair algae , he ate a bit of my plant that had a brown spot , but now i hope "they all" will eat
Thanks Rachel. That was really helpful. Got a few bladder snails when I added plants to my newly cycled tank. I left them as I figured they would help clear up some algae. They have done a good job, but have increased in number very quickly. So some of them have got to go. Was thinking of adding a pea puffer, but I don't think it will be a good fit for my community tank in the long run. The plants seem healthy, so going try increasing my maintenance, and cutting back on my feeding ( have been away from the hobby for 30+yrs, so it will take me a minute to figure that out. )
Very helpful video. I setup my DIY acrylic tank a couple months ago and now have a pond snail population in it. The tank is planted with various val species, java fern, anubias, and some bolbitus. I usually just let the snails live in the tank. It seems that they help a bunch with newly planted tanks since a lot of the plants that I use seem to die back when first introduced to my aquariums. I've also noticed that the longer the aquarium has been setup the smaller the population of snails I'll have remaining. I wasn't sure which snail I had until I watched you video. Without a doubt they are the pond snail so I now have three different pest snails in three different aquariums lol. Trumpets in my bolivian ram tank. These were actually put there on purpose by me. My favorite pest snail. Bladder snails in my Buenos aires tetra tank although there are very few in there. Now pond snails in the platinum angel tank. Not sure if I'll just leave them be and see if their numbers dwindle over time or start to remove them using your trap method or manually but great to know the options. Thank you for the information. I really appreciate all that you do.
Tried your snail trap, worked soooo well in the back of my tank where the filter is. Thank you so much!!
This is a great video chicky! When I was new to this hobby I did get lots of snails because I was ridiculously over feeding my tank I learned tons of lessons in the planted tank hobby. What I have learned is all of these snails are a potential threat but if you can not go crazy feeding your fish they all can be beneficial I have three or more species of thes guys and they are kept in check by my every three day feeding regimen. In the past I used to throw in a loach to bring them down in population but now I just do not feed the tank as much and the use of shrimps as cleaners usually out eat these snails so the tanks don't get crazy with them anymore. I have apple snails, trumpets, rams horns the rams get big fast but if you slow the feeding they will stall or slow right down. I love fish tanks and the beauty they bring to your home snails are helpers for me they keep the algae down and my glass clean as crystal Balance with these creatures is key.
awesome channel, Rachel! I am sure that you will feel at home here in Asia where the aquarium hobby is ridiculously popular.
Free snails are free snails haha I like them in all tanks eat extra food in all my colony tanks
Yeah haha i bought a plant whit apparently a snail 🤷🏻♀️ and now idk if i will have babies
@@frederiqueconstant8819 any luck?
Hi Rachel, I really enjoyed this video. I have the bladder and the rams horn snails and I agree with you. They are part of the natural tank but increase happens when something is out of wack! LOL overfeeding, more water changes, and sometimes ,I have plant decay or miss a dead fish. Yep, I hand pick the bladder snails out and keep the rams horns usually. some of mine have a shiny bronze shell. pretty I think
snails are friends :x
Not food
lol u 2
Shauna Louise that’s exactly what I thought when I read this comment
and food
Yes
Thanks for the info. Our 20 gallon tank was recently infested with ramshorn snails, likely coincided with an on-line purchase of red-leaf floaters that decayed after several weeks. Although the snails had initially appeared to be pests, I believe they solved our pH problem - the pH would always stay up around 7.8, and I would rather it was
Great info on snails! Thanks Rachel.
The MTS do a wonderful job of keeping my sand substrate clean and turned over. My tank even smells cleaner after I added them and my stem plants seem to be doing better. I just got my first rams horn snail 🐌, a pretty leopard pattern. He hitched a ride on some java moss I purchased. I'm quite impressed with how well he keeps the algae cleaned off my larger Anubias.
There are some beautiful colors of ramshorns! My favorite are bright orange
I just found a ram's horn snail in my aquarium yesterday :D
thanks you for sharing your wisdom with us. So glad I found your channel. Sara
Thank you for this. I got a "bonsai" tree from my LFS which I'm absolutely in love with however it came with some hitchhikers and now they're eating my new growth on my plants. I like that my mystery snails eat dying leaves, but these other guys are punks! I've been manually removing them but I'm gonna try the water bottle trick tonight. Thanks again! Love your channel!
Very informative video. I kinda like the snails and the trumpets are my favorites out of the ones that I've picked up from purchasing plants from the LFS. I've been lucky and haven't had them go crazy in either of my tanks. I guess it's been luck or routine maintenance
That's a sign you're taking good care of your tanks.
I really love snails,I always put some in new tanks I set up.I really don't get why people dislike them.
The water in my area is so soft that bladder snails do not manage to reproduce and they die pretty quickly. This happened with bladder snails that came along with some plants I ordered. While it does drastically limit the amount of species of fish I can keep. It also makes snail pest control very easy :D
I manually remove pest snails, squish them and feed to my glow lights, I think they really enjoy them and it’s an easy free treat :)
I found a bunch of beautiful snails randomly in my local little park. There was at least 50 of them and they honestly looked dumped into a small little water patch from sprinklers. I scooped them up and gave them a new home. Many didn’t make it but the ones that did, they have the beautiful iridescent green and brown shells and I love them so much. Two of them are also as you described about as big as nickels the others are just really fast and possibly bladder snails compared to the very slow big looking snails. So two different snails and I’m so happy with them! The best find I ever found in the local park was free aquatic snails! :)
Malaysians trumpet snails are great, i guess i do a good job on not overfeeding because i don't see many lately, i hope they are not all dead! Keep up with your great videos!
Awesome info! I have MTS taking over a 20 gallon , and those bladder snails trying to take over my planted pond...but I'll be trying that bottle trap tonight!
That's so smooth when you cut the bottle so satisfying 😮😮😮
I wanted to thank you for identifying snails for us. I finally have a scientific name for the snail I was trying to id - the mini ramshorn. I thought I had a bunch of ramshorns but they didn’t hold their shells the right way or grow very big. Now I know why!
I don’t mind them any and actually have several pests and bugs in my tanks. Nerites, mysteries, mini ramshorns, freshwater limpet of some sort, copepods... I find them just as interesting as the other creatures in the tank. Of course, the nerites and mysteries were purchased. I do miss my little bladder snail. It passed away before I got any babies.
Terrific info and tips! Gonna make a trap now! Also, you’re super easy on the eyes.
I've tried a variety of foods to 'attract' the snails to the traps. The best I found was banana skin, the browner, the better. Will cloud up your water for a few days, but works the best.
Thank you! You are so informative and thorough. I just found two snails in my tank. I think I’ll keep an eye on them. As long as they don’t eat my plants, we are ok.
glad it helped!
I walked in to my local fish store, and saw a tank they had that was infested with Malaysian trumpet snails, but it just so happened that I had spent weeks looking online for some for sale with no luck. You should’ve seen the look on the owners face when I told him that I actually wanted them on purpose. 😂 I got a small number for free, and I’ve had them for years along with some blue leopard rams horn with only 1 outbreak. 10/10 would do it again
Rachel thank you for your videos, I want to one day open my own freshwater fish store in my city, there are not many options and your videos inspire me. This is a true hobby for me and I hope I can be like you one day
I have a dirtied aquarium with a lot of plants, and thousands of Malaysian trumpet snails. I don’t think I overfeed. I think they’re just thriving on the soil and plants. Thoughts?
Your videos are very interesting, useful, simple and easy to understand. Definitely subscribing !! TY
That bottle idea 💡 is genius !!!!
Thanks for the info i just started the hobby recently and found this to be very informative.
glad to hear it!
Great video.
I had a problem with buying the wrong plants (ludwigia repens) for my lighting and ended up with lots of diatoms and dead leaves.
Combine that with apparently overfeeding fussy fish (some prefer flakes over NLS pellets) and now I'm constantly removing 10 or more bladder snails a day from my 20g high tank.
I picked up one of those ISTA snail traps and am planning on getting some amano shrimp to assist with getting the bottom cleaned up.
My nerite snails are doing a good job on the glass.
Vacuuming and 50% water change each week.
Really hoping that the trap and shrimp will do the trick.
Hunting bladder snails with a turkey baster is a good time killer though ...
just brought 10 snails and added then came across this ..... oh joy .... wondering if ive made a mistake .
sod it ... got 10 new friends and to be honest looking forward to having loads more
How are your snails now? I like snails, I wish I had more.
Thank you so much for this video. A huge help and very informative for a new aquarist.
Thanks for the great advice! I just recently found my first few in my new tank after heavy planting I believe they're Leopard ramshorns I've just put them in my quarantine tank as a maintenance crew!
I call them my little janitors lol Although they're new to me so give it time and I might be pulling my hair LOL.
Kuhli loach's have done quite well in my community for killing off bladder snails. They love the eggs. Kuhli's have become my favorite bottom feeder. In groups of 20 plus there great for string up that top layer. Ill agree, i dont consider snails to be pests at all. I find them essential in my dirted tanks. As you say, its an indicator.
weird my Kuhli never touch snails... at least mts
Andrew Ingalls Watson do you know if kuhli loaches would attack horned nerites?
My Khulis never touched any snails, however my clown loaches had a feast with the infestation of snails I had in my tank.
Khulis wont harm the larger snails. What they do is eliminate all the eggs and very small snails before their shells harden. They are only a tool to manage pest snails in a manner thats beneficial to your system. Nor will you see them do this as they hunt when its totally dark. Its what they do in nature. So all you have to do is remove the larger ones and your problem is solved. Water bottle trap is still the easiest way to catch adults. Clown loaches kill every snail, inducing those you want to keep.
+Andrew Ingalls Watson never wanted to keep snails, they're a pest to me and they eat plants, destroyed my amazon swords so that's when I got clowns to rid them. Never had a snail problem since.
VERY helpful video. So now I think I have bladder snails, but I also have very small black ones, no clue what they are. The little black ones seem to be multiplying the fastest. I really don't want to squish them. Maybe I could move them to spare tank. Do they need a cycled tank?
I have a huge colony of Malaysian trumpets in my sand substrate aquarium. I never had issues with my sand thx to those these little guys. But I control their population so their numbers don't overwhelm my system.
Thank you Rachel, I put 5 rams horn snails in my tank 6 months ago. Within 2 months I had HUNDREDS in the tank. I am still trying to get rid of them. Snail traps didn’t work. I am currently using cucumber in the tank at night which works a bit. I even took all of the stones in the tank out and left it in the sun ( in the Northern Territory australia) for 48 hours but I must have missed one because they are still breeding!
I have felt so disheartened about my pest snails. Thank you for making this. It gives me hope
You got this!
I like snails, the more the better.
I have had Cichlids for a long time, which meant I could never have snails. Now I have another tank (10 gallons) with plants, shrimp, and snails and I like the snails just as much as I thought I would. I bought some Ramshorn Snails and they are bigger than I thought; they lay eggs but they don't seem to hatch. I bought a plant and got three teeny tiny itty bitty Malaysian Trumpet Snails, and I would like to have a lot more and bigger ones. I bought some Mystery Snails and those are very interesting to watch eat, and the Gold ones are very outgoing, and one of them laid some eggs last night. 🎉 I also have two Spixi Snails, which are much smaller and slower and not outgoing at all, and one laid a few eggs, maybe 20, on a plant and I have spent weeks waiting for them to hatch, but nothing so far. They might be eating the Ramshorn snail eggs, I don't know. And I have some pond snails that I caught myself and they lay eggs on everything and they hatch. I even have a golden-shelled one, which I hope will have more. If I could find other kinds of snails, then I would get them too.
I definitely need a little clean up crew in my 5 gallon planted tank. I think I am going to add MTS and ramshorn to it. I am the worst at overfeeding. I only have a betta in there at the moment, so when I feed frozen foods there tends to be more than I like leftover, or it hides in the nooks and crannies of my eco complete substrate. I have noticed some detritus worms (which tells me there is too much leftover food). In the future I may add a Nerite variety (but a little unsure at the moment). I think I may add a few other fish as well to help eat the food (something small that goes well with a betta).
Hi Rachel.. I'm loving your channel.. so much to learn and enjoy!
Thank you :)
I love my snails! I’ve got them in my 29 gallon, 20 gallon, and 10 gallon. They reproduce like crazy 🤘🏽 which is why there is a pea puffer in the 10 gallon to help me maintain them as much as I can 🐌🐌🐌🐌
i bought some marimo balls about a month ago and hadn't realized until later that i had a little hitchhiker lol. now i have a little bladder snail named gary. he hasn't been a pain at all and is so interesting to watch
THANK YOU!!!!! 🐌 MINI RAMSHORN EXPLOSION! 🐌
🎶💖 You Rock! And that brain of yours Rocks some Solid Reality! 💖🎶
nice video, thx for sharing. now I know the snails in my aquarium is mini ramshorn. I used to call them ramshorn. anyway those mini ramshorn really multiply a lot lately, lots of eggs on glass and lots of tiny fry. maybe I over feed a little.
Snail trap is brilliant! no more anti-mollusc chemicals, thanks!
Thank You for the easy snail trap! It worked great in one tank but the bristlenose catfish ate all the treats in the 2nd tank - too funny! All the fish enjoyed the trap so much that I ended up removing the lid so they could easily escape and woke up to find my powder blue gourami in it - hee! hee! I love fish :-)
Great advice. I followed your advice and it's going really well 🎉
Hi Rachel, again thanks for the video. I've just had peppermint bristlenose catfish lay eggs in a tank in which I have pest snails. On asking for advice as I've not had fish lay before I was told snails eat fish eggs. Have you had experience with this?
Cheers and any type of snails which will eat live plants and not eat dead plants?
I have a bladder snails in my 5gallon betta tank. I don't know if I should be bothered or not. Right now, they seem to help clear up algeas. My tank looks so clean and im loving it. Is it ok to keep them and just control the number? Do they eat healthy plants?
+Carl Shayne Castillo yes, absolutely
+Carl Shayne Castillo no, they don't eat healthy plants though the will eat damaged plants
Great Channel and spectacular info. All the rest are simply amateurs. Thanks for all you do here!
+worddunlap ❤
Good to hear you had a great time at the convention .... are mini Ramshorn horns avid reproducers? I have a very small nano tank 3 gallons! wth one Betta S. and how much for one mini Ramshorn horn with shipping?
Thank you for this - You got a new subscriber today!
Welcome!
Well you would be my go to for aquarium stuff!
I'd rather have snails smaller than my Guppies for my planted Aquarium and I'd be happy to have tons and tons of snails to feed to the Pea puffers that I plan to get. What type of snail do you think would be best to keep in my guppy Aquarium. I am getting a 55 gallon with either sand or sand with varying sizes of particles order of some kind. I also want snails of course and shrimp to be in the mix. That was a ratio suggested by Cory Co-op.
Nice and simple Snail trap.
Ah! I hadn't even started stocking my first tank and already i have lots of little snail friends. Or, well, they do seem to be bladder snails, so maybe not so friendly... they are gorging themselves on some gunk and sad plant leaves rn. I think the plant will bounce back though, and maybe when i start stocking I will grow tired of the snails, but right now they are fun and cute! Thank you for a very informative video, as always!
When I had my first fish tank I decided to only use live plants. The next day I seen a tiny baby snails. I and my children were all excited about our free snail. Six weeks later it was snail apocalypse. They were everywhere. Now I check my live plants before I buy them.
MTS get huge! I was amazed when I saw one come out of the substrate.
Multiple Tank Syndrome???😂😂😂
I know, you meant Malaysian Trumpet Snails.
+Neon Tetra Aquarist Lol, good one!
The comment section is full of cringe. The bladder snails have reproduced in my EMPTY tank for months and there's been no feeding at all. The only thing they can be relying on at this point is algae growth, and they're obviously only skimming over that enough to get enough to grow and reproduce, repeat process for each snail. They don't even take the algae completely off of anything they happen to crawl over, to the point there is no visual evidence they did it at all. I have a total of three small live plants in the last few weeks they've eaten the rotten leaves off of, and then didn't complete that job at all, actually leaving most of the rot to move on and....repopulate.
And you guys can "embrace" these snails all you want to. I actually like trumpets myself. But PLEASE WARN your potential victims of the fact you grew your plants in a tank with these snails if you sell them or take them to the pet store. Mine came in on plants and I was not warned and needless to say, wasn't impressed by the seller at all afterwards.
Hal, aren't you a homicidal robot? I didn't know robots kept pets. Or plants... Please don't hurt me...
🎶Daisy, 🎵Daisy, give your answer, do... 🎶
@@ZomBeeNature LOL that song is in my head now! 🙉🙉🙉
Great vid, very informative and helpful, one thing I'd like to suggest is when describing size it would be much easier for us international viewers (Hi from Australia!) if you could describe sizes in inches or centimeters(cm)/millimeter(mm), it would make for a much easier form of reference since I personally had no idea how big a nickle was, turns out its .835 inches or roughly 21mm, the more you know!
ah! Good point!!
I am 64 and have been keeping aquaria and vivaria since I was 5 years old. I have always liked snails and had them in my freshwater tanks. I have had everything but nerite snails at one time or another; mystery, trumpet, trapdoor, ramshorn and black pond. I have had massive numbers of pond and ramshorns in tanks at times, but just smashing them and letting the fish eat the bodies or tossing to fish like puffers has always done the trick. Squashing the egg cases of pond and ramshorn snails works too. At one time I had about 200 gold mystery snails in a 55 gal and that was too many, but I got three dojo loaches (had no idea they ate snails at the time) and they eliminated all babies. I gave 100 away, so the population without any reproduction going on, gradually dropped to just one large adult. I missed them so I bought another young gold mystery snail and set them up to breed in a nano tank, along with 2 trap door and a bunch of malaysian trumpet snails. Still looking for some nice ramshorn snails to add to that tank. If they get too over populated, I can just toss the young ones to the dojo loaches in the 55 gal. I always have fish that like lots of veggies, so I usually have leaf lettuce or raw spinach floating in the tanks so i have never had an issue with snails eating live plants.
I think the two pest snails I like, are Pond Snails and Ramshorns. The Ramshorns have nice spiral shells, and decorate the substrate after they’ve expired. While Pond Snails have those triangular antennae, the size they get to is a marvel too.
Impressive knowledge about all things aquatic..thanks
My wife has a couple of mystery snails in her small aquarium and they are my favourite of all the fish.
Hey, good video. I got some snails with my new plants, and I like them being in the tank.
Snails are kind of cool when they don't take over the tank and eat new plants. You say they eat algae? I have a hair algae problem. Would those slow-reproducing snails harm moss balls?
This was so helpful, thank you!
Your trap with catching them in a bottle is amazing and has really helped my snail problem, rather than killing them is there anywhere you can release them without issue
your local fish store will take them. Mine gives them away for free.
... well you could feed them to other fish and snails that eat them? They wouldn't die in vain.
Rachel, what's the best way to stop my nerites from doing a leap of faith from the tank? My parameters are just fine, but they keep trying to escape. I have a rimless tank and don't really want a lid, is there an aquarium-hack that might keep them in?
I know you have a rimless tank for a reason, however, the only thing (besides a tight fitting lid ) that I've seen work to keep your snails from escaping is to take Velcro type tape, the self stick type, and stick it all the way around the outside of the tank top. Make sure you use the rough side , the snails don't like the feel of it and won't cross it. I watched a video on this and the snail just sat at the top of the tank but wouldn't cross over that tape. And it comes in several colors. Hope this helps. 🐚
Your the best and love your vids. God bless
Great info on all of your vids! Been a huge help.
Does they destroy the plants , are they gud or bad ?
I found baby dwarf ramshorn snails in my damp garden under a pumpkin leaf. Can I keep a few as pets?
*I have little holes in my vallisneria I think it might be this please tell me what you think I only bought it a week ago*
I bought sword plants from my LFS and these “bladder snails” just started popping up all over my 400L tank randomly. I wasn’t sure what they are as I have 4 mystery snails and I didn’t see no recent clutches above my water level. I have counted and there are about 30+ baby bladder snails haha. Thanks for the video I could diagnose what I have in my tank now And now also incubating a big clutch of mystery snails. It’s CrAzY! All I wanted was a few mystery snails in my large community tank and now I am infested with snails 😅
Lmfao
Hi, which snake would you suggest for a 3.6 gal Bstta Tank?
What's your opinion about malaysian trumpetsnails (apart from what you've already said on the video)? I find them pretty useful - they seem to clean my substrate and gravel extremely efficiently. Of course I collect and isolate the excess.