How I Keep My Aquariums 100% SNAIL-FREE with NO Chemicals
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- I know many people like Malaysian trumpet snails, ramshorn snails, and bladder snails in their aquariums, but I personally don’t like keeping anything that breeds out of control and obstructs my view of the front glass. In the past, I conducted many experiments on using plant dips like bleach and alum, but I’ve finally settled on 5 methods that are easy, cheap, and free of dangerous chemicals. Using a combination of these techniques, I’ve successfully kept my aquariums 100% free of pest snails for almost a decade. I spent a lot of time testing the last method called “reverse respiration” and I highly recommend that you try it out!
🌿 RESOURCES
▶ Reverse Respiration official site: reverserespira...
▶ Reverse Respiration forum post: forum.aquarium...
🐟 MATERIALS I USED
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▶ Seltzer water: amzn.to/3E4xHgL
▶ Container with loose lid: www.dollartree...
▶ Air pump: amzn.to/4hsrsBx
▶ Airline tubing: amzn.to/42qlWuY
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Have you ever tried reverse respiration, and if so, what was your experience? Also, I promise I don't hate all snails. I absolutely love the silly antics of this amazing snail: ua-cam.com/video/4a5L48ZOVuE/v-deo.html
I love ramshorn snails best algae eater in my opinion I never deal with any algae in my bucephlandra and anubias dominated tank
I love love love Reverse Respiration. To fix the floating plant problem- use a netted filter media bag, a fry box, or some kind of basket material weighed down with gravel (under the plants) to keep the plants submerged. Also if you have an aquarium fully infested with snails and you want a restart, I have mildly reverse respirated an entire aquarium. You can use A LOT of carbonated water OR some hydrogen peroxide (like 5% by tank volume) if you are truly desperate.
Good to see you back. I like my snails. I have MTS and my substrate is spotless. Every now and then I submerge the end of a cucumber in the aquarium at night. In the morning it is covered in snails. I fish the cucumber and snails out and dispose of them.
I got a female betta for my community tank that had been taken over by bladder snails and she decimated them. We've been 100% snail free in the tank she lives in for 3 years now. They are like, her favorite thing. She gets to "hunt" and eat what she apparently thinks is a delicacy.
I just learned about reverse respiration a few days ago, and I’m really excited to try it!
I love all my snails! 🐌❤
Reverse respiration is fantastic! I honestly don't mind snails but it's so great for algae issues. And it definitely does get rid of all the snails too. Done it a few times now for various setups and it's definitely going to be a consistent part of handling new plants as they come in going forward for me.
I have been using your Alum method for many years as my gold standard. I will certainly give this reverse respiration a go!
Awesome tip! Thanks, Irene.
I love the reverse respiration method. It works and the plants seem to benefit from the extra CO2 too.
I've done reverse respiration. It's amazing! Thanks for highlighting it!
Always look forward to your videos! I am always surprised how much people don't like ramshorn or nerite snails as I love mine. But I do HATE duckweek...hahaha.
I had a 20 gallon long swarming with pest snails. The assassin snails worked amazing. The pest snails still bred faster than they could be eaten. However, as the assassin snail population increased, the tank eventually became pest snail free
And you can actually sell assasin snails for a decent price so it is a good way to go indeed 👍
The worst part on my case is that I was going to have a 100% pest snail free but while cycling I thought to myself "well a couple bladder snails wouldnt hurt!" Well yes it did lol
i actualy like my pest snails whenever i see a new species in my new tank. i just say hey thats neat
Nice. I'll have to give this a try.
I love them and keep both pond snails and bladder snails . I feed them and have very healthy aquariums.
I love the bladders and ramshorns, but pond snails love to munch on my plants more than even the apples do. I have a separate bin where I toss my pond snails, and occasional skimmed off duckweed, salvinia, vals etc. They eat those all up, too.
@@sinine1100 yes I had that problem and found they won’t eat Water Lettuce 🤣 I keep my large collection of pond snails with my Aquatic Dwarf frogs 🐸 with a rock bottom and only water lettuce. They clean up the blood worms and shrimp the the frogs miss. My other tanks with just fish are mainly bladder 🐌. The Pond snails don’t seem to eat the vallisneria or other plants though. Nobody touches the water lettuce 🥬😊
I hate pest snails I use to use your Alum dip until I tired the Reverse Respiration amazing I have used the Reverse Respiration for snails ever since ,,I was one that help test it the experiment I started it because of brown algae yes it does not get rid of black beard algae but the brown algae it helps allot The balance of the tank and light is best for algae control but the Reverse Respiration is amazing with the snails and pest critters ,, I do not have a real dark place in house I just use a loose lid over the container and put thick towel over it to put it in darkness ,, make sure it is completely covered if you use a towel for darkness And to weigh the plants down I use old extra set of folks spoons and butter knives ,,, There is plants that do not like Reverse Respiration mostly grass type and they need less time Make sure you do the water treatment with the air stone and air pump after the seltzer very important step I will be buying new plants in the spring will have to get more seltzer for it
I’ve been using your tip of alum mixture to soak my plants in for years and I haven’t had an issue again!
This looks like a fascinating (and easy and inexpensive) method, so I have to give it a try. Like you, I hate pest snails.
Thank you for your DIY home experiment. Real time results and expectations.
incredibly helpful info, thank you for sharing!!
Love the loach plan
I really like the no chemical aspect of this. good info. I have way too many MTS in my tanks right now. Have been feeding less and hand picking to try to get their numbers down. Ramshorn were a problem in the past but not now. I love nerite snails as they don't reproduce in fresh water.
I feel your pain! One of my 20g tanks was taken over by MTS. I couldn't get rid of them. So, I decided to take it down and start from scratch. The new setup has been running now for 5 days.
I find it amazing when snails just pop up in my aquarium. I suspect it’s the plants bringing the eggs in but I kinda like it
Never had much of an issue with them? Great part of the clean up crew. Cherry Shrimp seem to out compete them and keep their numbers in check.
Thanks again for another very useful video. I am grateful you share your knowledge:)
I've been on team no snail, but have really enjoyed the two new Viviparius snail species (Blueberry and Orange river). Both of these are livebearing snails that only give birth to 1 or 2 live young a month.
yaaay!!! another vid!!
I'm with you I don't like snails in my tank. They multiply like crazy OMG. I got some from store bought plants so I really appreciate this video. I bought a clown loach to get rid of them that's all I could do there were so many. I never knew about Pet Smart Plants , thanks for sharing that information. I will check them out for sure. ♥
Good tips. I had bladder snails come in on plants placed in a 20g shrimp tank. In the next 4 years I tried living with them, manual removal and not feeding the tank. After four years, the tank was still infested. I added 6 assassin snails and in 4 or 5 months the bladder snails were gone. I moved all the nano fish, shrimp and plants to a 50g tank. Still no bladder snails in the new tank so the plants were clean. I now have a plant quarantine tank for plants that are not tissue cultures. I will try the seltzer water method in the future with plants I want to use in a more timely manner. Thanks again.
I ended up getting an assassin snail introduced into my tank by accident; must have been on one of the plants I bought. I actually like the various snails, and though the freaking assassins killed my bladders, I still have the rams horns, and could probably find bladders in the future from a local pond or something.
hi!!! welcome back :) great video!
Thank you Irene! 👋💌
So excited to see another video!!!!
More videos please. You are the best!
Black beard algae: Arrggg me maties! Attack the aquarium and take 'er as a prize!
A 3 minute submergence in Hydrogen Peroxide has worked well for me. A few delicate plants like Vallisneria don't like it much, but I've rarely killed the plants and I'm snail free so far. I'm definitely going to try this method..
For BBA I use H2O2 and it works wonders. If the algae is too heavy I just snip off those leaves and treat the rest of the plant. Also need to change up the flow pattern in the tank. I have noticed excess fish food on the leaves exacerbates the issue.
My aquarium once had a bladder snail infestation. Every day, I hand-picked around 20-30 snails for a week. Then, I bought some danios and cherry barbs. I’m not sure whether they ate the snails’ eggs, but from that day on, I couldn’t find any juvenile snails.
❤ i have never had an aquarium with a few snails… it is either zero or hundreds😢
mechanical removal every day for a long time until the disease goes away. be prepared to have to do it again
i hate pest snails too. great tips! got rid of mine with pea puffers
Missed you!
Lol, I feel you @GirlTalksFish I'm not too happy about all the pound snails I have lol. I love my Nirete snails though lol. Thanks for sharing your ideas ans solutions 👍.
Although I really didn't mind these snails because the keep my tank super clean. Their numbers do get out of hand. You can try cucumbers to pull them out and reduce their numbers.
More vids please.
I just bought a 6 gallon corner take with one betta(Gillbert). What other fish can I put with him and how many? I’ve seen you other videos of tank mates but I don’t know how many for my 6 gallons.
I’m a little confused by the idea of them breeding out of control. I mean I see a lot of people saying they will but I’m so confused because they’re in all of my tanks and I’ve literally never once had an overpopulation issue. They seem to completely self regulate to me I’ve never had to remove any before. I have mostly pond snails and ramshorns but I think I might have seen some bladder snails before as well.
I love my angelicus loaches! The only way I got rid of all my snails. Love them because they stay smaller looking like a baby yo-yo loach. They keep their spots.
I had a very minor snail "problem" in my 45 gallon aquarium. I just kept a constant vigil and crushed ANY snails as soon as I saw them. Provided a little extra food for the fish, for a little while, until I managed to crush the last one. All my tanks are snail free with the exception of a couple of Nerites.
Woohoo I picked the best video title!!
Ive had my golden ram pair hunt down lots of snails lately ever since i added them to my tank that was infested with Malaysian trunpets and ramshorns
If you want to know the science of reverse respiration it kills the snails by suffocation similar to overdosing CO2. Plants also need some oxygen, which is likely how you killed delicate plants.
This is also why those bladder snails were gasping for air, when that happens you can pick them off. It is also likely they came from a low oxygen environment, which is why they lived longer than the other snails.
Warning with the pufferfish....when they run out of snails to eat they will attack and eat the other fish in the tank
PS, try some Panda Gara for that black beard algae.
i just keep assassin snails in every tank that doesn’t have shrimp or something to population check the snails. then the dead snails break down and sink through the substrate via microfauna recycling them. they’ll always have a home in my tanks lol
how do you get your assassin snails to breed? my snails will breed, but their eggs wont hatch. ive read its because they need marine water to hatch- how do you safely remove the eggs without damaging the plant? do you have any tips for taking care of teensy assassins?
Snails are like duckweed, love/hate🤔
It’s not that bad in my opinion
I’ve handled snails for 55 years!! My fish love to eat them!
PREACH about being anti-pest snails! I am not raising a snail tank! lol Preach!
I love snails to feed to my Yo-Yo loaches
Add pea puffer, the ornithopter of fish world. With a few weeks, you will search for snails to feed them.
Pea puffers will unfortunately not just eat snails. They also love eating shrimp and fry. They also tend to be nippy
@shackleDev oh yes, I forgot that part. Once the snails got over, the pea puffer trimmed my betta
I started my tank with tissue culture plants and ended up with pest snails.
love you irene
I love ramshorns but I HATE bladder & pond snails.
Yo Yo loachs are great snail eaters.
My suggestion? Get a little puffer fish to eat the snails!
Unfortunately assasin snails aren't allowed to be imported to Australia 😮💨🤬😡
I love my snails if you don’t overfeed they are not a problem
Hah. One reason why u need multiple aquarium is that few grow snails and few aquariums eat them. My Puffer fish and cory eat them. Where u get them if not have few aquariums to grow snails. One i grow Anentome helena they eat all kind of snails and buffer fish then eat those clea helena into next one. U need to have life circle or part of in when u got this hoppy.
I hate snails too!
They by far produce more poop than they eat algea. And they even don't eat the algea with a skelleton. Use amanos, they are way better.
My pufferfish ate all my snails, only treatment I've ever done.
If I had the $$$ & space. I would have a large bass or bluegill tank.
Due portugal
I love bladder and ramshorn snails, but Malaysian trumpet snails are terrible.
🧍♀️
🐕😊😮😅😮
What i need is how to make them Hydra free 😢
Potassium permanganate
Reverse Respiration works on hydra just fine.
I actually prefer snails
Free food :v
Tissue culture pots can be incredibly slow to grow.
I just enjoy popping them & letting the fish eat the yummy bits they love.
I like my snails, but sometimes they get to be a bit much & I thin the herd or trasnfer them to other tanks to help clean up the excess food that the baby fish don't get.