Methods of killing snail infestation

    What are some of your go to methods that you use to kill off tanks that just have a huge snail infestation? I’ve heard of people trying to use the following (not in any specific order);

    1) dosing some medicine that has copper (assuming they don’t have any other invertebrates or sensitive fish)
    2) removing all plants and fish, then dosing high levels of salt
    3) adding on items like zucchini during the day and then taking it out at night to remove all of the snails, before repeating the following day
    4) adding in fish that hunt snails (pea puffers in small tanks, loaches in bigger tanks)


    What is your go to method and how has it panned out?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    • Best Answer

    I normally don’t mind the snails unless they are huge pests one. Then I would avoid getting a fish just to eat the snails (same said when people have algae problems and get an algae eater) as once the problem is gone, you have an additional thing to kept fed differently in your tank.

    I would probably advise, if you have no sensitive species and have verified this through each species’ profile, that something copper based wouldn’t hurt them and you don’t plan to do many changes soon with your stocking, to dose with medicine and then heavily gravel vac + huge huge water changes after.

    Otherwise I would advise to use vegetables on a fork and in the middle of the night to pull it out every so often and get the snails that way. It’s less ideal since not all of the snails may actually go to that food source, but should help keep numbers in check if done frequently enough.

  • Avery March 4, 2022 at 3:10 AM

    Selected a post as the best answer.

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