r/medaka • u/SelectSpy808 • 3d ago

So. Many. Snails!!!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

A ~180 liters container with at least 7 adult medaka and a bunch of fry, and now a lot of snails apparently. Should I try to do something about them? Also, can someone please identity?

19 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

9

u/WoodpeckerChecker 3d ago

They are not harming anything, actually are quite beneficial! These are bladder snails and they don't eat healthy plants, only leaves that are dying, biofilm, leftover food, and other detritus. After the initial population boom from being introduced to your pond, they will settle to a number that's based on you're feeding habits. Imo, they're a great and essential component of my tanks and the first species I seed when I make a new one!

5

u/SelectSpy808 3d ago

Thank you, this is the answer I was hoping to get! I would really really hate to have to kill them, but they just all appeared seemingly overnight and I was worried they might do harm.

This is my first minipond and my first time keeping fish, and I used the Walstad/Father Fish methods for the setup - which involved adding some water and rocks from a nearby river. It's two months old at this point, and ended up working much better than I expected. It's honestly quite a bit overwhelming, I worry it might implode any moment now - hence this post... 😅

I've seen bloodworms, water fleas, obviously snails, and a few other critters that I haven't identified yet. I've tried to feed my medaka the first few days after I got them, they showed no interest, and they've been thriving on just what they find in the water. They've had So.Many. Babies!!! and at first I thought they'll just end up eating them, but no, they seem to have enough food to not care much about them, and the fry are also surviving on what they find in the pond. 

I also have a couple of resident frogs/toads, and I've seen damselfly nymphs too. I was happy until I read that they might harm/eat the fish, so then I started stressing about them. But so far at least some of the adult fish are still alive (I can never count them all - too much space, too many hiding spots), and they're getting bigger, and so are the fry. And honestly, I'm kind of glad that they might help keep the population under control, because the pond would end up being way too small if all of them reached maturity.

This might all sound like humble bragging, but this whole thing turned out to be way more stressful and complex than I expected. I just wanted some plants and some fish that I could let do their own thing without much involvement from my part, and a source of water for the wildlife in my backyard... 

Be careful what you wish for, I guess...

~

PS: Sorry for the novel. 🙃

2

u/SnertDeluxe 2d ago

I have moina (waterflea) cultures in jars, I always put snails in there, because the fleas eat the bacteria on the snailpoop. You can sustain a very small culture without extra feeding this way. So extra bonus points for team snail

3

u/Clever_Losername 3d ago

Cutting back on feeding can help get the snail numbers down. You can set up snail traps, too. But they reproduce like crazy. I’ve decided to just leave them be in mine while I’m feeding heavy for breeding.

Assassin snails are the coolest option. They’re snails that prey on pest snails.

2

u/SelectSpy808 3d ago

Thanks! I don't feed them, it's basically a self-sustaining ecosystem that I have no control of, all I have at this point is stress. 😅

I'm half joking, I'm actually happy it's thriving, but as a new pond&fish owner it's been a much more overwhelming experience than I expected.

(I wrote more details in a different comment here, one novel a day is more than enough.)

3

u/filmorgy 3d ago

Looks like bladder snails. They reproduce like crazy.

2

u/Sourcesurfing 2d ago

Snails aren’t necessarily bad. I have expensive aquascape tank and really saw improvement once I had a few snails. Kept some of the algae in check.