Snails in my tank

[nickh]

Hi, what would be the best way to get rid of or at least keep the snails under control?

The catch is that i have a 54L tank, so im a bit hesitant to put clown loaches in there. Is there any other loach that will eat the snails but also stay small enough for my tank. Thanks

[JarrenB]

A young clown loach will stay small enough to live in your tank for a while (at least long enough to remove the snails) and clowns are easily sold or re-homed when they get too big.

[Southerrrngirrl]

Zebra or Yoyo Loaches will eat snails but not grow as big as Clowns.

[hovmoller]

Zebra or Yoyo Loaches will eat snails but not grow as big as Clowns.

Agree, I got 3 Zebra Loaches for my 300L tank to control snails.

After 2 weeks they had annihilated the snail population to only a few very small ones that can be seen at night and the loaches are still only 6-7cm.

[LisaC]

I have chain loaches in my tank (similar size to yours) - they do a great job of keeping the snail population down

Lisa

[Stella]

hire-a-clown?

[nickh]

how fast do the zebra and yoyo loaches grow? its not a big tank at all is my problem

[JarrenB]

If you don't want to get a snail eating fish you could put a small slice of courgette in tank overnight, and by morning it will be crawling with snails, then just pick them out. This method won't remove them totally but can be used to control their numbers.

Also, A local club member (Hawkes Bay Aquarium Soc.) had a method involving a piece of copper wire, for more info on this email/pm Zev she will have it amongst her minutes.

Hope this helps ...

[hovmoller]

how fast do the zebra and yoyo loaches grow? its not a big tank at all is my problem

Google says Zebra Loaches only grow to 10cm..

So one of those will be fine

Oh.. do you know what kind of snails you have? Trumpet (spiral pointy) or Ramshorn (just spiral)

Trumpet snails have a really hard shell so loaches will only eat small ones while ramshorn have a softer shell and the loaches will make a hole in the shell and then yank the little fella out of his shell... very effective!

[nickh]

I think they are just ramshorns, they are quite small. They are still pretty small, the biggest ive seen is about 2mm

looks like it could be a Zebra loach. Thanks for all your help

[A-town...]

Ive found dwarf chain loachs do a good job and stay small. quite little characters also

[fishplants]

I have three Striata (Zebra) loaches in one tank that was becoming infested with snails, those lazy bu**ers weren't interested in doing their job, it was way too easy to eat all the food the discus missed! :lol: I put one small 3.5-4cm Angelicus Loach in and within a couple of weeks he had knocked the population down to barely noticeable. He quite happily cruises around with the Striata, although they don't appear to have learnt anything from him!

The Angelicus Loaches in my other planted tank keep that devoid of snails too, although there are plenty living in the cannister filter.

Angelicus Loaches are very slow growing, even slower than Clown Loaches, and don't get as big either.