Unknown snails showing up

[foshizzle]

So a while ago, right after buying some plants for my 10g aquarium, these tiny little snails started showing up everywhere! There where a ton of them, so I went to the fish store for advice. They said that I should grab a yoyo loach, because they will eat them and keep them under control. Well I did, but after some research ,i found out that a yoyo is much to big for my aquarium, so I will be taking him back soon. How do you guys recommend getting rid of these weird snails??? I don't want to use snail killing chemicals because I hear its really bad for the fish. Thanks guys.

[imma24]

I've read of several ways to deal with snails -

1) find an assassin snail - they eat pest snails
2) put a piece of cucumber in the tank held down by a fork - snails will go to eat and you can just remove it along with the snails
3) as you have found do NOT buy a loach - you should never purchase a fish to do a job for you
4) you can pluck them up by hand too
5) the next time you purchase plants (if there is a next time), soak them in alum before adding them to the tank to kill any hitchhiker eggs

I'm sure if anyone else here has dealt with snails successfully they'll chime in - I personally don't mind mine but I can see where in a smaller tank you don't want all of them.

Do you currently have fish in this tank?

[talldutchie]

6. Get a pint sized plastic bottle. Rinse really, really well. Punch a few small holes in it to aid sinking. Cut the top off and push it back in inverted. Bit like this



Bait with some well softened veg. Carrot works well.

[Vreugy]

Ten gallon tank = one assassin snail. Two if like. You won't see them much as they like to "work" at night. Also like to half bury themselves during the day. They do a great job. Kind of neat looking too.

Hope you have a great day

[1Sarah]

I'm hoping I avoided this in my tank. I got some plants from someone that had snails in their tank and I did some research online. Alum as suggested above was one thing I read, but also rinsing in a salt solution (aquarium salt, NOT iodized table salt). Then rinse them again in dechlorinated water before adding to tank. It's been 4 days now and I haven't seen a snail yet, so I'm HOPING that this worked. The plants seem fine so far too.
As far as getting rid of existing snails, I can't really help, but my back up plan if any do show up is to get an assassin snail and hope it keeps the numbers down.

[foshizzle]

So it seems like an Assasin snail is the way to go. I say that because even if I baited them in with the cucumber or bottle, they will come back. There are some that have found their way into my filter! Are they available at most pet stores?

[genocidex]

do you have any other inverts in the tank you dont mind killing? dosing the tank with something with copper in it (even a heavy dose of copper ferts) would kill off any inert in the tank.

another idea is if you can rehome your fish for a day, with the plants. you can heat the tank up to as high as you can (higher than 100*) this will kill off the snails in the tank as well. give the tank a few hours are this temp then lower back to normal and do a big water change with gravel vac. then treat the plants with a snail killing treatment like alum or potassium permanganate