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Not fish but snails

Simon25

Member
Joined
5 Oct 2021
Messages
35
Location
Southend
Hi all,

I’ve not added any new fish or plants for 6 months to a year and the past two days I’ve noticed towards night time I have 100s of baby snails appear. I’m assuming these are nerites snails as I have 4 and they are constantly attaching them selves to one specific snail. So my question is how long does it take for the snails to get to a decent size? As my tank needs a clean but I don’t want to kill the snails 😩
 
Yea they normally need brackish water, but they are very adaptive and can occasionally breed in freshwater but the baby snails are unlikely to survive. But there is a possibility that they will from what I have read online. I will post a picture when they have came out again
 
Hi all,

I’ve not added any new fish or plants for 6 months to a year and the past two days I’ve noticed towards night time I have 100s of baby snails appear. I’m assuming these are nerites snails as I have 4 and they are constantly attaching them selves to one specific snail. So my question is how long does it take for the snails to get to a decent size? As my tank needs a clean but I don’t want to kill the snails 😩

Post up a pic - they won’t be Nerites for sure, but an ID should be straight forward enough from a photo.
 
Last edited:
A78BB700-73F0-4432-93BB-B92B764365AC.jpeg
it’s a bit hard to see as they are so small at the moment but may help would be appreciated
 
Are MTS classed as a pest snail that ruin aquariums? Also how did they get in there? Nothing new has been added for such a long time and only seen this from 2 days ago
 
Are MTS classed as a pest snail that ruin aquariums? Also how did they get in there? Nothing new has been added for such a long time and only seen this from 2 days ago
It's the same for most snails that are classed as "pests",they only become a problem when there is food in abundance which naturally triggers them to breed.
You probably accidentally introduced them the last time you added plants/fish and they've been hidden away in the substrate doing their bit cleaning up excess food etc without you noticing until the numbers had significantly increased.
In a tank with gravel or sand it's easier to remove them but in a planted tank with soil your only option is to introduce some Assassin snails really and that's not going to be an instant fix.
I would also suggest cutting back on the amount you're feeding the fish too :)
 
Hi
many people dislike snails.
Im not one of them and in my experience no snail ruin tanks.I used to run a small snail farm aquarium 20 ish liters with 300+ mixed adult snails in it and the plants grew in there like a charm with almost no damage from the snails. No algae ever stood a chance too.
Those will mainly live in substrate(Its beneficial as they move it about too keep it healthy)and come up during night.You can pick them out before lights on if you need to reduce population but if you are not overfeeding all snail populations will be kept in check due to limited food source.
Regards Konstantin
 
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