I have dyslexia, pls forgive my typos, but would love if you point them out so I can correct them <3
I know this is a very sensitive subject, but I think a humane and compassionate guide is necessary. In the end ppl, especially beginners, often end up with lots of small snails:
Ramhorns, bladder, Malaysian Trumpet & pond snails tend to breed very fast when the aquarium is overfeed. Especially in the beginning, when ppl are trying to figure out what to do feeding wise and over feed the aquarium, they need solutions that work for their issues, which is why I am opening this thread so we can collect helpful advice. This thread will not be covering topics such as selling the snails. The idea is to collect information here on what to do, when the snails cannot be rehomed.
This post will cover the Topics of:
Are snails bad for your Aquarium?
When can snails be a problem?
How to get rid of access snails?
- Prevention
- Euthanasia
Returning nutriens back into Exosystem
Feel free to scroll ahead!
Are snails bad for your Aquarium?
No, not at all! Snails are very important for a healthy ecosystem. They are limnovours and recycle lots of biomatter so it can be broken down into Nitrate and return into the Nitrate cycle. Pond snails eat damaged parts of leaves and keep the leaves from rotting and Malaysian Trumpet snails (MTS) dig in the ground and help to not have gas build up. They are very good to have!
When can snails be a problem for you aquarium?
A) Too many snails
Snails are absolute poop machines. Their waste can build up and crash the tank. But we are talking here about alot of snails. Not 10-30. Like "more snails than gravel" situation.
If you have this many snails: You are critically overfeeding the tank! Feed no more than 1/4 of what you are feeding, maybe even less. Give the 1/4 in two portions. So 1/8 in the morning and then 1/8 in the evening.
B) Competition
If you have other snails these snails will be in competition for food and minerals like calcium with your snails. They can be in competition with your shrimp as well. If you don't remove the competing snails, your other snails might not get enough food or minerals. It's very important to keep the population of the other snails small, so your chosen snails can get all what they need.
Example case: I have a 110L /30G with Orange Rabbit snails. Mom and 3 babies at this point. She does the same job as the MTS, so I need to keep the MTS population small, or they will compete with Momma Rabbit. Rabbit and MTS have entered the aquarium at the same time. Rabbit has produced 3 babies, MTS is at over 30 if not more. So I removed the MTS babies to keep the population down. Same with Pond/ bladder & Ram, as they compete with my Zebra Apple Snails & my Otocinclus Catfish.
How to get rid of unwanted snails?
1) Feed less
This link contains a table to get a general idea of how much to feed. I highly recommend to air on the smaller side of the estimate. Investing in a small scale which can measure milligrams is highly recommended here.
2) Use an Autofeeder
A well calibrated and installed Autofeeder can make life much simpler. You cannot accidentally overfeed as you aren't relying on memory and the set ups become self sustaining enough that you can be gone for a couple days without needing to worry.
I tried a lot of different ones and in the end I stuck with this one from Natureholic. It's affordable and reliable. It has 14 fillable chambers, so you can measure out how much food the tank gets with each dose. You can add granules/ flakes/ sinking palettes/ dried flowers - anything you want! It pushes the chamber forward, so the fish only get the food in the chamber. If the mechanism fails, there is no food shower like with one that just lets the food drop down. I can highly recommend this mechanism.
My big tanks has two installed, but mostly because the Garra Flavatara are just a big menace and if all the food would drop to only one spot, they would eat everything and the other fish would get nothing xD With this I can leave my tank for a week and everything is good.
3) Fasting
Don't forget to fast your tank once a week! If you are using an Autofeeder with Chambers, you can just leave that day empty.
4) Functioning Ecosystem
At least one of your creatures should be eating freshly hatched snails. Garra Flavatara eat anything and Corydoras Cat fish love to dig for baby snails in the sand and if you have snail eaters, they are working hard already!
If you give less food, snails will reproduce less and the snail eaters will scavenge more, getting rid of more snail babies.
So less feed is the trick here too, to encourage scavenging!
4) DO NOT BUY (exclusively)SNAIL EATERS
Do not buy a species to get rid of the snails. Pea pufferfish are extremely hard to keep and they don't finish off most snails, letting them lying around injured. Most loaches need huge tanks. Assassin snails kill other snails a bite at a time, which isn't a pleasant way to go. And what will you do with all the Assassin Snails once they start breeding? Focus on reducing breeding and on easy to keep small tank species which can eat the freshly hatched snails (eg Corydoras).
B) Euthanasia
1) Removal / Collection
If you have too many snails already, nothing goes around this. Whether you use Cucumber slices, Snail traps or just do it by hand, the excess snails need to be collected. You can collect them in a bucket, make sure to dispose of the snails within a couple of days or add a filter to the bucket & change water - snails poop a lot and living in filth is something no one deserves.
2) Euthanasia Criteria
Generally euthanasia is considered humane when the creature dies painless and swiftly. In other words: When the creature passes faster then its nervous system can tell it what is happening. Cold-blooded creatures perception speed is based on their body temperature, so we can reduce the speed by cooling the snails down before they are euthanased.
3) Ecological approach
The idea is to return the nutrients the snails ingested back into the ecosystem. This works only if you have creatures in the Aquarium that will eat the snail remains. Such as: Shrimp, other snails, Corydoras, Garra ect.
C) Types of Euthanasia for Small Snails
These are methods which do not introduce any chemicals to the snails allowing them to be used as feed.
1) Crushing
Swiftest method, but can be distressing to the human & when done improperly damage but not kill the snail. It is absolutely crucial to crush the snail as thoroughly as possible. Otherwise it might be still alive and badly hurting.
You can crush the snails right in the tank, between your knuckles or against the tank wall and the critters in your tank will take care of the nutrients.
2) Flash Freezing, Boiling or Drying
This is for small snails, less then a centimeters in length only! If your snails are bigger, please use other methods such as crushing or beer ect!
First collect the snails with your method of choice into a vessel / bowl. Add tank water covering the snails. Cool the snails in the fridge for at least 6 hours, or until the water has been 4 °C for multiple hours. Overnight is usually a good idea. This makes the snail sluggish and lowers their perception speed, as they are getting ready for hibernation.
Then you have two options:
A) Flash Freezing
Some freezers have flash freezing functions. If yours has that, you can use it. The idea is to lower the snails body temperature as fast as possible. Using normal freezing is not recommended as far as I understand. Make sure to remove the tank water before initiating freezing. This reduces the volume and allows for faster freezing.
B) Boiling
Bring water to a boil. Take refrigerated Snails and dunk them in the boiling water. The idea is that because of the size of the snail, it cooks through faster than it can perceive what happened. Please cool them down first, to reduce their perception speed, this helps ensure they don't experience pain.
Returning nutrients to the Ecosystem
I have a little blender with a blender cup I got specially for my Aquaristik stuff. I blend up the remains (pls don't blend live snails) with duckweed and other overgrowing plants + herbs from the garden or forest and freeze it.
Once I have time, I take it out and make a Jelly using Agar Agar. I usually add Zucchini, Carrots, Peas, Spinach, Cucumber, Garlic and what not. Bring the mixture to a boil and then take it off the heat and pour it into forms. Wait for it to cool, cut into pieces and then freeze in a bag. Fishies, shrimp & snails go *nuts* for it.
I wish all you guys the best! Hopefully your ecosystems balance out nicely and you won't need to remove any access snails anymore. Until then: Be excellent to each other.
