# Pond Snails Friend or Enemy?



## Jark (Feb 6, 2010)

I love ramhorn snails and keep them in most tanks but I am nervous about the pond snails and their reputation for eating plants. I know this is a common topic but about half of what I read says just tolerate them and half says kill them before they get you! I ended up with pond snails in a newer tank that I dry started. I didn't worry about snails because it was "dry start". Apparently they are fairly amphibious. Anyways now the tank is flooded and all the snail eggs hatched and the population explosion has begun. With dwarf hairgrass, HC, and other delicate plants I am worried about the pond snails becoming a curse. The pond snails are the only inverts in the tank so far as well as some inbreed forth generation hillbilly guppies.

Should I :
a. keep, nurture, and love pond snails
b. practice population management threw hunting and introduction of natural predators
-puffers
-loaches
-predator snails
c. utter annihilation!!!
-chemical?
-excell overdose - solve a little BBA in the process.
d. put a few in another tanks and see how many I can breed


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

My experience is that pond snails (genus Physa) are friends. They are even less likely to damage plants than ramshorns. They are better at eating surface bacterial films or algae films and soft types of algae. Ramshorns in my experience scrape a little harder and can make inroads on green spot algae, whereas pond snails can not touch it. When a new tank is starting up and the plants are few and far between, the pond snails multiply rapidly living on the algae explosion that happens under those conditions. Later the ramshorns become more numerous and the pond snails become scarce or even die out.

I have heard these stories about pond snails eating plants, but have never seen it happen. I wonder if these plant-eating snails were a different species from what I have.


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## orisuechris (Aug 14, 2010)

Utter Annihilation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

I suspect that pond snails were responsible for eating the roots and undersides of leaves of my frogbit and causing it to die. They give me no other problems.

--Michael


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## Jark (Feb 6, 2010)

I have had romshorns eat salvinia leaves but not enough to slow the overpopulation of salvinia. I recently noticed a few large ramhorns eating fiddleheads on javaferns in my desktop tank at work. I thinned out the larger snails and left the smaller ones. The pond snails haven't hurt anything so far in my 55g. I will keep an eye on them as they get bigger though. 

I still want to get a puffer fish though. They are so personable.


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

In my experience, snails only eat dying/dead plant matter.


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## Aelyph Finrel (Apr 26, 2010)

I vote for option D.


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## James0816 (Oct 9, 2008)

Aelyph Finrel said:


> I vote for option D.


That was evil! 

Ponds are a nuisance but can be controlled via the amount you feed. I as well haven't noticed any munchin on plants unless the leaf was on it's last leg.

And another good note (one that I actually just learned myself). There's a difference in species. What you have pictured are bladder snails (Physidae family).

Then there are the ones I just discovered recently (Lymnaeidae family). These guys are way much larger than the bladders and much kewler looking at that.


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## Amante_di_Betta (Aug 31, 2010)

I think its strange most of you have had issues with ramshorns vs pondsnails. About a year and a half ago, I had around 40 tanks set up. All planted, all with invert or fish of sort in it for my breeding. The plants in the tanks where pondsnails grew (for my puffer) would kill plants left and right. My brigs (now classified as difussa I guess) and the ramshorns would leave everything alone..I'd say utter annihilation although I don't like the idea of chemicals because with most snail killing chemicals (Had a snail) are copper based, and you'd never be able to keep inverts to the tank again. Just my $0.02 though


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## JohnPaul (Aug 28, 2006)

My sense is there are a lot of different species of snails that often get lumped together as "pond snails," and that some of them are plant eaters and some are completely plant safe. In my tanks I always have MTS and ramshorns, and often a nerite or two as well, so between all of them I really have no need for pond snails so I squish them on sight and let my shrimp finish them off. In a planted tank with no other snail species, I couldn't see the harm in letting them live for the time being and just keep a close eye on your plants--if you start seeing damage, you will know they are the culprit.

As for getting rid of them, I would definitely not go the chemical route. Most snail removal drugs contain copper, which will get in your tank and you will NOT be able to get rid of it, and in the future any inverts you introduce to the tank will get wiped out. Copper gets absorbed by the silicone sealant and then slowly re-released over time.

It's usually possible to get rid of snails via physical removal--blanch a piece of zucchini (or some other fresh veggie), put it on the bottom of the tank with the lights out (dark room) and then come back in about an hour or two and it will be coated with snails. Remove, repeat every day or every other day for a week or two (and also squish any on sight you see during the daytimes) and you should be able to get rid of all of them.


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## Jark (Feb 6, 2010)

I have notices some damage unfortunately. They hare stripping the hornwort and killing new cryp leaves. I will follow your advice for baiting and removing with lettuce or zucchini. 

In my 5.5 I found some of the larger ramhorns chewing new java fern leaves resulting in halved and deformed leaves. I baited them with an algae pellet and transfered them to my 37g mess. There were some monster ramhorm in there. I must have taken out 25 the size of dimes.


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## joshvito (Apr 6, 2009)

is there a place on the forum, that has macro photos of different snail species?

a quick google search guided me here 
http://www.planetinverts.com/snail_species.html

maybe I will start a snail photo thread, I have at least 3 different types.


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