People love to decorate their homes by keeping aquariums of various sizes at home that range from the size of a shoe box to a refrigerator. Aquariums are loved because they make you feel closer to nature apart from their use for beautifying the home. But one problem that aquarium keepers face is the persistent growth and multiplication of snails in their aquarium tanks. These innocent looking snails reproduce very fast and soon cover so much area of the aquarium tank.
These snails not only make the aquariums look less beautiful, but they also cause discomfort to fishes present in the aquarium. Even if you remove these snails, after one week or two, you would notice another pair of them smiling creepily at you. Now announce your war against those aquarium snails by using these marvelous tips.
Replace the water after cleaning the aquarium properly: If you feel that the snail growth is happening at a high rate in your fish tank, then you should replace the water of the fish tank. This way you will be able to remove the snails and their eggs from the fish tank. Cleaning the aquarium properly before pouring fresh water in it is also important. You should also take out the aquarium artifacts like artificial bubble producing machine or plants to clean them thoroughly. This will wash off the snail eggs that might be hidden on these aquarium decoration items. You can also use some bleaching agent for cleaning the aquarium.
Don’t buy an aquarium even if there is one snail in it: The snails are self reproducing creatures which don’t require mating with other snails. There are no male and female snails! Therefore if you want your aquarium to be snail free in future then make sure that the aquarium is not infested with even a single snail. It might be possible that the single snail has already laid its eggs in the aquarium water. Also give new fishes a `bath’ before letting them inside the tank. i.e. you should first put them in fresh water mug, and then into the aquarium to wash off any snail eggs that they might bring along with them.
Start using less fodder for fish to make them snail hunters: It is a wise idea to reduce the amount of food that you feed to your fishes in the aquarium if you feel that there are too many snails in the tank. Giving them less food will mean that the fish will become active predators that will start attacking the snails for food whenever the snails come out of their shells. This would reduce the snails’ population slowly.
Introduce snail eating fish species into your aquarium: Another efficient way of reducing snail population is to introduce snail predator fishes that love to feed on snails. These predator fishes like clown fish and loach fish etc will exclusively feed on snails by breaking their shells too. Even if you will throw fish food in the aquarium, then also these predator fishes will prefer eating the snails. However, once the snail population decreases, then you can remove the big fishes.
Buy snail trapping equipment or make your own snail traps: The snails love food like algae, rotten leaves, rotten plant pieces etc. Therefore you can make you own snail trap by putting a heavy metal box inside the aquarium with rotten food that is stuck inside the box using water proof adhesive. The snails will get attracted to the food and they will collect inside the box. You can slyly pull out to box filled with snails. If you can’t do even that much, then it’s better that you purchase some snail trapping equipment that is easily available on the internet.
Handpick the snails if they are few and use them as fish fodder: If one day you find yourself standing near your aquarium and there are more than 30-40 snails lurking inside your beautiful aquarium, then you have to manually take them out one by one. Instead of throwing these snails, you can use them as fish fodder by removing the snail bodies from their shells. These snail bodies will be loved by your lovely fishes.
Use snail killers in your fish tank for a temporary period of time: There is a special type of large sized snail that is non-generically known as killer snail. This snail specifically feeds on the small snails. Therefore, you can purchase this snail and introduce in into the fish tank. This hunter snail will eat away all the existing troublesome snail population until it is completely eradicated. However it is advised to remove the snail from the fish tank once its work is over because it might harm very small fish if there will be shortage of food.
Always clean off the algae growth inside the aquarium: Keeping the aquarium clean from inside not only increases the life of the fishes, but it also helps in getting rid of the snail population. You can introduce fishes into the fish tank that specifically feed on algae growth. Also, you can manually remove algae from the aquarium by scooping it out. The snails who predominantly feed on algae for survival will die due to starvation.
Finally here’s the simplest, yet handy, tip: be gentle about your ways when dealing with anything related to aquarium. It is pretty delicate and you don’t want to destroy it by being too harsh.