# Why are snails so bad?



## PostShawn (Dec 22, 2009)

I found a snail in my tank the other day. I only found one and it's about the size of a pea. It's the pointed ended kind like in the picture below. It probably hitched a ride from my life plant in the tank. It's a bamboo plant with the pot at the bottom of it. 

My question is why are they so bad like I've been reading around here? How fast do they multiply*?* I don't mind a few. I just don't want hundreds. Is this the bad variety*?* Currently I have 4 goldfish and a pleco in my 15g tank. I'm setting up 55g tank soon for them. If they out grow that my father-in-law has an outside pond they will go in so that's not an issue for me right now. The fish don't seem to care at all about it. It's an active snail because every time I look in the tank it's at a different end. I only see one when I look so maybe there's more then one but I haven't seen more. Do they need two snails to reproduce or are these creatures capable of that with just one*?* Should I keep it or get rid of it*?* 

Example:


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

Probably a Malaysian trumpet snail or pond snails. They are asexual reproducers(normally I think). You probably have more than one....

they are not bad IMO, but lots of people seem to think they are. A large population usually means something is "wrong" or out of balance in the tank. Usually poor cleaning or there is too much excess food. They are harmless, will consume excess food, do some work on algae, and MTS will mix gravel.


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## snyderguy (Feb 9, 2010)

They're not necessarily bad. I personally love snails but like Mikaila said, they reproduce fast and they produce a lot of waste, which can lead to high ammonia levels


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Snails are good and bad. The clean algae off the glass and plant leaves, they clean up uneaten food, some kinds (mts) aerate your substrate . But they can eat fish eggs, they can carry disease, they can eat live plant leaves. And they are an animal that adds bioload to your tank. 

Most snail-haters have had a population explosion. And although snails are producing ammonia, its no more than would've been produced by the rotting of whatever they ate (algae, plants, excessive fish food).

Be careful declaring war on snails. Like excessive algae, if you kill it, take it out. If you poison hundreds of snails hiding in the substrate, you could have a major ammonia spike from their corpses. Safer to take them out first, then kill them.


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## pinetree (Nov 29, 2009)

They can get into some kinds of filters and jam them up, too. You can control population by putting a slice of vegetable (like zucchini) into the tank overnight, which attracts the snails. Then just remove the zucchini with the snails on it.


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## PostShawn (Dec 22, 2009)

Thanks everyone. I think I will leave the little fella in there for now. I'm hopping to have my 55g setup and ready for swapping in about 3 weeks time so I will just transfer everything but the snails, and maybe the live plants until I can find out who's hiding in there.


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## Tallonebball (Apr 6, 2009)

If you move the live plants then chances are you will move some snails.


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## PostShawn (Dec 22, 2009)

Tallonebball said:


> If you move the live plants then chances are you will move some snails.


Can I un-pot the plant and clean the roots then re-pot it and be safe from the snails? Or will they hide inside the plant or something?
If not I'll just give the plant to my FIL for his pond. 

I guess this is what I get from getting plants at a large chain petstore. Next time I'm only going to my local aquarium specialty stores, where I bought the fish from.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

well I got my snails from the specialty fish shop. It seems to be inevitable that you get the 2 together.
Goldfish will on occasion eat the snails as will some cichlids. loaches eat them. if you crush them they make a tasty treat for all the fishes in the tank. they can also be an indicator of water quality issues in the tank. they do not seem to care for a lot of pollution.
Also you will notice that in the mornings they are mostly at the top of the tank and sometimes out of the water. At least this is happening in all my 6 tanks.
This is an indicator than there may be a lower oxygen level in the tanks than the snails would prefer.this is because plants give off CO2 in the night. Within a few hours the snails are on the bottom cleaning up.
When I get too many I pop them into a vase on my windowsill that houses several vines that I am wintering over for my summer planters. The vase grows lots of algae in the sun so the snails keep it nice and clean.
Kids like to watch snails crawl around the tanks too.


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## NatBarry (Feb 19, 2008)

Snails aren't all bad, they are nice additions to tanks its just they breed so fast you loose track of how many you have in your tank. This is a let down.


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