# Kribensis to keep snail population under control



## maestrale (Dec 17, 2009)

Here is how I keep my snail population to a desirable level.

Few years ago I also started noticing baby snails in my tank, which showed up after I introduced new plants (of course).
The baby snails grew up and at some point I had 100+ adult snails in the tank. So I explored the following possible solutions:
1 - Intruduce loaches
2 - Introduce puffers
I realized that none of these solutions would have worked well for the loaches or puffers in the long run after all the snails would have been wipen out. Also, puffers may nip fins of their tankmates. 
I removed some of the snails with a lettuce leaf left in the tank during the night and removed in the morning, but they kept coming back.

Now comes the interesting part of the story.....

After a while, I bought a pair of Kribensis. Not to fix the snail issue, but because I wanted to keep them. As usual, I put the new fish in a 10 gallon quarantine tank for a few weeks. During this time I noticed that the couple of ramshorn snails that were in the tank disappeared. So I threw a handful of snails taken from the main tank in the 10G and I was amazed to see that the Kribensis crashed and ate all of them in a couple of minutes. I didn't know that Kribensis have a taste for snails. Needless to say that once I moved the Kribensis to the big tank the snail population went down dramatically . Some snails are still in the tank, which is good so they eat leftovers. For some reason the Kribs are eating snails, but not all of them.

Now the Kribensis are happily thriving and breeding on a regular basis. Their fry also like to eat snail eggs and baby snails.


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## TarantulaGuy (Apr 15, 2009)

Very nice! My kribs won't touch my snails unfortunately :/ Even my assassin snails didn't make it in a tank full of pond snails. <<<doomed to have pest snails forever.


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## maestrale (Dec 17, 2009)

Ah too bad that your Kribs don't eat snails. Maybe the fact that mine are imported from Nigeria may be playing a role.

You can try harvesting them every morning on a leaf of lettuce left the night before or you can borrow a couple of clown loaches for a couple of weeks.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

I had exactly the same experience with kribs eating snails.

I had a 29 gallon tank that was infested with ramshorn snails. For a year I manually removed 50 to 100 snails a month, month after month. Then I added a pair of kribs to the tank.

In the three months after that addition, I removed 10, 12, and 4 snails. After that, they were extinct and the kribs were breeding. But that's a separate issue. 

Bill


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## geeks_15 (Dec 9, 2006)

My apistogramma cacatuoides eat snails too. I have 3 in a 75 gallon tank and it is nearly snail free.


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## maestrale (Dec 17, 2009)

Amazing....I didn't know dwarf cichlids like escargot  

I'm still wondering why mine don't eat them all.


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## ree123 (Jan 10, 2010)

I too am wondering why mine don't seem to be consuming any of mine. I have ramshorn brown and red shelled snails and the trumpet snails present and several varities of Kribs, and my snail populations are staying the same. When I introduced Clown Loaches I saw a dramitic reduction in those tanks, but no notice of reduction in the Krib. tanks. What could be the common denominator here ? Are the imported Kribs from Nigeria wilds ?


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## maestrale (Dec 17, 2009)

YEs they were wild from Nigeria. Maybe that's the reason.


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## ree123 (Jan 10, 2010)

May very well be..........None of my Kribs are wilds. I do have some F1's but even they don't seem to relish snails, although some may be being eaten. There are lots of snails, always have been, and I reckon always will be. Even in tanks with the Clown Loaches, snails seem to re-appear from time to time. Just part of the aquatic world we enjoy I do believe.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Try pinching the snail and dropping it back in the tank. Many fish like escargots, but need some help opening the package.


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## maestrale (Dec 17, 2009)

I also suspect that parents teach the fry to eat snails or the fry someway like snails as well. When baby kribs are in the tank there are no snail eggs or small snails. I saw one of the baby kribs eating snail eggs one time.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

My kribs were adults and were many generations removed from Africa.

They were the standard krib, Pelvicachromis pulcher. There are other members or that genus. I don't know if they eat snails.

Some krib strains seem to have degenerated over time. They are not as colorful as their ancestors. Maybe they lose their snail eating tendencies also?

Bill


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