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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Am I facing snail invasion?

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17 Jul 2010 15:05 #1 by Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
Is it possible to bring snails into the tank when new fish is introduced? Or maybe they were hidden on plants. Last week I noticed very small 5 snails in my tank, then there were 15 on Wednesday and yesterday I stopped counting at 20 in the tank and when I was changing water and washing external filter I had dozens of then in the filter tank. What should I do? How to get rid of them? I heard there was a fish - a snail connoisseur. Any ideas welcome!

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  • David (David)
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17 Jul 2010 15:17 #2 by David (David)
Replied by David (David) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Hi

If your tank has the capacity for them Clownloaches work wonders at removing Snails
if you dont want to introduce any more fish

you could try placing a leaf of lettuce weighed down at the bottom of the tank leave it overnight and then remove it and you should and i stress the word should be able to remove the lettuce with a large portion of the snails on it

Have not tried the lettuce myself just read about it so not sure how well it works

Regards

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17 Jul 2010 15:34 #3 by Xaribdis (Lorcan O' Brien)
The leaf method works a treat, I tried it myself. However, it won't get rid of your problem- there will always be smaller ones in the substrate that haven't emerged yet. It only takes one snail for them to become a problem very quickly as they can reproduce asexually.

Best way to permenently control the problem is snail-eating fish. I don't know what does it for me, but has to be either my Siamese fighter or Black Ghost Knife Fish, as they were introduced at the same time that I starting finding empty snail shells and no live ones anymore. There are one or two huge snails that help deal with algae, but no infestation of small ones anymore.

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17 Jul 2010 16:04 #4 by Ma (mm mm)
Leftover food and an excess of algae will make the population explode so take care with feeding and keep the gravel and glass clean, this with the snail trap works wonders, also, snails that don't multiply so fast like apple snails, they are greedy gits and leave little for the smaller pest snails to eat.


Mark

Location D.11

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17 Jul 2010 16:38 #5 by dar (darren curry)
oh how i'd love a shot at using assasin snails, would you contemplate this method

Check out the angling section, it is fantastic

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17 Jul 2010 18:18 #6 by Pat (Pat Coogan)
Hi
I had the same issue and bought two assassin snails and they cleared up the problem. They eat snail eggs and also snails. I was intrigued to actually watch one chasing a snail accross the glass. They only lay one egg at a time so you wont have an infestation of assassins.
Pat

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17 Jul 2010 18:23 #7 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
OK, so now you rid the Tank of Snails, then what? what feeds the Assassins?


Kev.

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17 Jul 2010 18:40 #8 by Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
I've put lettuce at the moment. I would love to have both fish you recommend me but my tank is only 84l and as far as I know they need more than 200 liters... maybe there is a smaller fish that could do the job? I don't expect to have algae problems in my tank - water in my tank is very clear, nearly cristal and I use JBL's Algol to prevent problems. The tank was totally emptied and washed 2 weeks ago when I was moving to new house. Gravel and everything else were also washed. I use 2 filters to keep water in good condition: internal VitaTech (similar to Ehaim 2010) filled with PhoseGuard and Purigen and external one - Hanza HW-303B 1400 lph with 3 buckets with zeolit, bio-ceramic and active carbon and there is also fiber in every bucket. I don't think fish are overfed - they get food once or twice a day and it disapears in 2 - 4 minutes. But I'll keep an eye on it. I'm nearly convinced I must have introduced snails eggs on plants that I planted in May. I haven't seen any snail in my tank before or maybe I haven't noticed that.
Regarding lettuce in my tank - snails seem not to be interested in but flying foxes are!! ;)

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17 Jul 2010 18:45 #9 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Fresh Water Puffer?


Kev.

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17 Jul 2010 18:49 #10 by David (David)
Replied by David (David) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Another option would be the Zebra loach grows no more than 4 inch
however it likes to be in shoals of 4/5

To be honest i think most loaches will help maintain and controle snail levels

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17 Jul 2010 19:03 #11 by DJK (David Kinsella)
When using the lettuce method it is a good idea to place it inside a small well cleaned plastic or glass bottle with its opening nudged in level with the substrate. Add a couple of algae wafers or the likes to it also. This will make removal very easy.


Dave

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17 Jul 2010 19:06 #12 by Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
Kev,
maybe some other suggestion, please. I found puffers were agresive or very agresive and even dwarf puffers could nip fins of other fish. I'd like to avoid such situation when I got rid of snails as well as my fish (apart from guppies, I have razboras, mollies, swordtails, red phantom tetras, corries and flying foxes) :laugh:

Katherine

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17 Jul 2010 19:13 #13 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Only suggestion is esha molluscide. Providing you have no Copper sensitive Fish/inverts.

Kev.

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17 Jul 2010 19:20 #14 by Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
Zebra Loach sounds OK - I'll check if they have it in New Ross; a glass bottle snail trap has been ordered (no empty bottles at home at all...).
Thanks everybody for help! :)

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17 Jul 2010 19:46 #15 by Alex (Alex)
Replied by Alex (Alex) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
What type of snail is it? Assassin snails are great however Iv heard they don't eat Ramshorn snails..
If you have Malaysian trumpet snails id go with assassin snails.. they love them.

@Kev- my Assassin snails haven't had a snail to eat in a year... They eat bloodworms, tablets n flakes ect.. Only thing is they don't breed as much.

I think the loaches are your best bet for controlling the snails. They will happily gobble them all up.

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17 Jul 2010 20:34 #16 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Finally an answer, I was refusing to buy these due to lack of that knowledge, I've no doubt I'd find info on the Web but first hand knowledge is hard to get, Thanks Alex.

Kev.

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17 Jul 2010 21:58 #17 by Alex (Alex)
Replied by Alex (Alex) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
Yeah i was a bit worried myself when the MTS Population ran out... I had around 30 assassin snails at one point due to constant supply of snails... snails are definitely the preferred diet.

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18 Jul 2010 10:45 #18 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
Assassains prefer snails but to be honest you'd need them in large quantities to really make a dent in a tank thats overly populated with snail.I always have alot of snails in one of my tank and have a job getting rid of them,but if you do a good gravel vac every week its balances itself out in the end.They are no harm either so as long as you aren't overran by the snails then its not the worst.The assassins take a spell to eat them once they catch up. They bury into the sand in my tank for days and emerge out of nowhere then!!
Still they are interesting addition.
Gavin

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18 Jul 2010 18:40 #19 by 2poc (2poc)
Replied by 2poc (2poc) on topic Re:Am I facing snail invasion?
I used this stuff recently to good effect: www.eshalabs.com/gastropex.htm

Its around a fiver a bottle as far as I remember.

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20 Jul 2010 15:26 #20 by curefan (Dave Massey)
Ill second the Assassains, cleared my tank:)

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20 Jul 2010 15:33 #21 by Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
I didn't manage to buy Gastopex and Assasin snails are not offered in 2 pet shops in Wexford... So, I am 'fishing them out' everyday. When I feel better I'll go to New Ross - to one of our sponsors, maybe they'll be able to help me.

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20 Jul 2010 16:22 #22 by dar (darren curry)
my idea of a snail trap, see them plastic containers you'd get wit a curry, cut a couple of crosses in slightly larger than the snail and push the cuts inwards, place some veg in, snail pushes trough the crossed hole but coming back is faced wit a smaller hole blocked wit spikes. ive never tried this but i'd imagine it could work

Check out the angling section, it is fantastic

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20 Jul 2010 16:46 #23 by curefan (Dave Massey)
Katherine wrote:

I didn't manage to buy Gastopex and Assasin snails are not offered in 2 pet shops in Wexford... So, I am 'fishing them out' everyday. When I feel better I'll go to New Ross - to one of our sponsors, maybe they'll be able to help me.


I bought my Assasin snails on the web (uk website) and they all arrived safe and sound!

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