snails

[Mike L]

 Just thought I would post. I have an outbreak of pond snails in one of my tanks. I removed all the rocks and cleaned yesterday. When I was finished I attached a piece of romaine lettuce to a string and after soaking in hot water for a few minutes placed it in the tank and left overnight. Just pulled it out and it was half covered. At least 20-30 very encouraged. I'm going to buy some leaf lettuce tomorrow and I might blanche it but it works very well so far.
Mike

[Mike L]

 Just an update. For the second day in a row the lettuce has proven very effective. At least the same number on the leaf. I figure at this rate they will be visually eradicated within a week or so. I don't know enough about them to know if I'll ever completely rid the tank though. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
Regards Mike

[101DalmatianMollies]

I have 4 assassin snails in my 33 gal. I have them for this sort of thing. They're easy to keep, and pretty cool looking.

[Mike L]

 I went further this past weekend on eradicating the snails as I was rehousing all my fish. I'm a little nervous about the possibility of having transferred snails to the other tank but I moved them from the old tank into a pail and then to the new tank so we will see. There where 5-6 in the pail. I removed plants all décor and on Thursday cleaned my filter. Wow was there a lot of snails in the filter. My plants are all out of the tank and in a pail with an air stone for agitation. What would be the best way to rid the plants of snails and further the tank proper. The lettuce is still doing the job all be it with less numbers as there are not as many as before.
Help info would be great.

[lucius]

You can keep an eye for snail eggs and get rid of them even before they hatch.  Just do a Google search on what they look like.

[Mike L]

Thanks I will do that. They are pond snails and most are so tiny it's sometimes hard to even see them until they are in numbers ,but I am getting better. I have never dealt with snails before. Keeping cichlids over the years they where never introduced to my tanks but a bit of the planted talk on this site got me wanting to branch a bit. I made the mistake of taking some plants that I didn't disinfect before introducing. Lesson well learned.

[101DalmatianMollies]

Assassin snails