# carpet with MTS?



## wearsbunnyslippers (25 Jan 2011)

by MTS i mean malaysian trumpet snails, not multiple tank syndrome or mineralized topsoil. too many tla's...

how do you start a carpet with these snails??

you can spend hours planting hc or glosso, tenellus etc. only to come back in the morning and see all your plants floating...

i just moved house, and left my tank empty for about a month, the substrate (flourite) was damp, not wet, and low and behold after filling it up, the snails are back. i guess they sealed up their shells and lurked... any ideas on working around these?

i dont want to resort to clown loaches or assassin snails, i am not feeding anything currently as there are no fish, can i starve them out?


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## Tom (25 Jan 2011)

No fish? Dry start!!


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## wearsbunnyslippers (25 Jan 2011)

i only have the one tank setup, and i have a few plants already that would not work with DSM.


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## mlgt (25 Jan 2011)

You could always rinse the substrate with some boiling hot water if the tank is sitting idle for a month?
I would just chuck in a handful of assassins and just leave them be. 

I dont think its possibly on starving them on. Ive tried before. Ive left a tank for nearly 3 months and when I added water the snails were back. I just picked the ones I saw or just squished what I could. 

But that was over 2 years ago now.


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## chrisfraser05 (25 Jan 2011)

to be honest I'm going to agree with the above. All your options are there!

Infact I lie. Nasty chemical snail treatments are your only other option.
These are full of copper which will soak into hardscape, substrate and plants and you'll never get rid of it. 
If you medicate you will never be able to keep snails or shrimp afterwords.

I'd get some assassin snails and just keep replanting for the mean time!


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## mlgt (25 Jan 2011)

Else another way is to fill the tank with a little water and then leave a piece of lettuce or something out. Every morning fish them out and squish them or something.

Then repeat in the evening.

However MTS can breed very quickly so I guess the substrate is quite rich of food so they can reproduce in a matter of days.


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## danmil3s (25 Jan 2011)

Puffer fish love snails u could try that


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## Tom (25 Jan 2011)

Not MTS they don't :/ They might suck them out the shells, but the majority won't be able to break through an MTS shell - they're too tough. You can borrow my baileyi if you like  He made a right mess of my finger last year!


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## wearsbunnyslippers (25 Jan 2011)

never seen assassin snails in south africa, they are pretty strict on the invert list.

i have already filled the tank, i wont know what to do with the puffer afterwards, so i guess it is going to be manual removal for now...


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## wearsbunnyslippers (27 Jan 2011)

cranked up the co2, the snails are crawling up the sides to the top, making them easy to remove


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## a1Matt (27 Jan 2011)

I recently got rid of some snails by putting a foot long piece of copper pipe in the tank.
After they were all dead I removed the pipe and did a 100% WC.

Only problem is I did not want to kill the snails


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## RudeDogg1 (29 Jan 2011)

Ammonia works and it's easy o get rid of unlike copper


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## DavidC (5 Mar 2011)

We had pest snails whilst cycling a tank and they weren't there at the end. +1 for ammonia


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