# Snails in canister.



## thebopmeister (Apr 28, 2009)

Hi there,

I always find at least a few hundred small snails living in my canister filter when I come to rinsing it out. There are a few of these small snails in my tank but I always left them alone as I assumed they might contribute to algae reduction and i'm sure some fish might find them tasty. Mollies??

Am I right to not be bothered about these squatters in my filter? If anything they would just keep my filter media relatively clean, right? 

Any thoughts? 

Thanks,

Anthony


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## JustLikeAPill (Oct 9, 2006)

Free biomedia lol


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## thebopmeister (Apr 28, 2009)

haha. apparently these are Planorbidae. And they like to eat plants


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Planorbidae or so called mini-ramshorn are very hard to get rid of.
I suggest you throw an assassin snail in this tank and don't feed it
so it only has Planorbidae to eat. eventually you'll be snail free.
snail eaters like loaches, gobies, puffers and crayfish are ineffective.
The last time I had Planorbidae the only way I could be rid of them
was to air dry all my substrate, wood, rocks and filter media and
1:20 bleach:water dip all my plants for a minute, then rinse well.
It was a lot of work, but now my tanks are Planorbidae free.
I love snails and have Ramshorn & MTS and population control
them by selling any extras to grateful local hobbyists.


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## neilshieh (Jun 24, 2010)

darn... lucky people. i'm short snails because my asssassin snails just keep eating them. i wouldn't mind a mini ramshorn population in my tank. they'd keep my assassins fed. they've decimated by ramshorn and MTS populations.


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## thebopmeister (Apr 28, 2009)

Wow I would like to try the assassin snail approach sinceI don't like the sound of having to bleach everything. Its a shame that snail-eating fish are ineffective: That would have been an ideal solution.

Best wishes

Anthony


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## test pilot (Nov 6, 2010)

I have a 10 gal tank that must have 100's of malaysian trumpet snails. They stay under the gravel for the most part. Every once in awhile there is a mass exodus out of the gravel. They crawl around the glass and plants for a little bit and then back into the gravel they grow. The largest ones are about half an inch long. I've introduced them into my 5 gal tank where the grow larger.

I've attempted to introduce ramshorns into both the 5 and 10 gal tank. I bought about 10 snails on two occasions and introduced them into the tank. I have never gotten them to populate the tank (thankfully because if they are indeed plant eaters this would have been a big mistake as the tank is well planted). I've always assumed that the trumpet snails (since there are so many of them) easily find and eating the ramshorn eggs. Is this a valid assumption?

The tanks are populated with other fish, a few dwarf african frogs and some amano shrimp. But nothing that is known to munch on snails.


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## SueNH (Jan 17, 2005)

Amano shrimp munch on snails if they get hungry enough.


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## SueNH (Jan 17, 2005)

I have the mini rams and they don't bother anything. Mostly I see them on the glass. They don't even seem to breed as fast as the regular rams and pond snails.


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## test pilot (Nov 6, 2010)

At this moment I can see three ramshorns in my ten gallon. They don't seem thrive. I do see small ones from time to time so I know they are breeding. I just assume something is having at em since they should be easy to breed.


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