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saving plants from snail pandemonium


Dave+Amy

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I'm in a process of breaking down a tank, have moved the loach residents and have encountered a giant bloom of snail population, I'm wanting to use the variety of plants in another tank but needing to get rid of the snails first.

heard potassium permanganate does a good job? how do I treat these plants? I'm thinking about (after all fish residents are gone that is) soaking the whole tank in pp and then empyting the tank after? HOW long should I do it?

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Potassium Permanganate- Or, “PPâ€, can be found online, or you local phamarcy

You add just a few grains of this to a container or sink and then add the water. It takes it a little while to dissolve, but no big deal. Your goal is to get a good dark pink tint to the water. Once you get it a good dark pink ( but not light pink, not dark purple), add the plants and give them a bath for a good 15 to 20 minutes or so. After that, drain and add fresh water. Stir in some dechlorinator or hydrogen peroxide, both of which will neutralize PP. You can go heavy on the dechlorinator, but don’t go overboard on the hydrogen peroxide. Rinse plants again, quickly, and they should be ready.

HTH

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just use a high salt solution. dip the plants in or keep them in it for a few mins, and presto. the snails curl up in their shells and you can get rid of a majority of them.

KMno4 is another good way too.

copper sulfate solution or crystals (bright blue) can be disolved in water and that'll kill them. it is very poisonous though - so be careful. but i doubt you can just get it over the counter.

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I dont know if this is a good practice anymore but years ago at Lower Hutt Aquarium Club we had a speaker who said easiest way is to have 2 copper wires attacthed to each side of a 9v battery. Stick one end in each end of the tank and copper sulphate is formed. This kills the snails.

I tried it once with no ill effects on fish or plants and definately killed the snails. I prefer clown loach way these days.

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so it sounds like PP is the easiet to get hold off? what would a good dechlorinator be?

I won't have any fish left in my tank when I do this, but I do know there's a hell of a lot of these critters chewing away on my precious plants, they're in the gravel too so I was wondering if it would be safe to treat the whole tank?

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Snail rid from the local pet shop is a 1% solution of copper as copper sulphate and kills snails (and fish) With no fish you could double or triple the dose and you will knock the wee sods right off. Just make sure you rinse the copper off before adding fish. Pot permangenate is a strong oxidising agent and oxidises lots of things as well as the snails, but I have used copper at many times the dose and had no problems with the plants. I wouldn't put it near fish like that though.

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Snail rid from the local pet shop is a 1% solution of copper as copper sulphate and kills snails (and fish) With no fish you could double or triple the dose and you will knock the wee sods right off.

how long do I leave the tank soaking in snail rid for alanmin?

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