# Malaysian Trumpet Invasion!



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

I breed snails in one tank to feed to my puffers.
I wish I hadn't started breeding MTS though. My puffers can't eat them very well. Well, these guys breed like rabbits.

I'm wondering if anyone out there has a good way to rid myself of the MTS but keep the rams safe?

I've tried clown loaches & cucumber trapping. But they just breed way too fast.


----------



## cossie (Dec 19, 2010)

you can always send me some


----------



## lmb (Nov 1, 2011)

Snail populations depends on how much left over food that you give them. Start trying to feed to much or let any food touch the bottom of the tank because that's mainly the MTS's food source.


----------



## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Lettuce leaf over night. In morning, pull it out, grab the trumpets, bag em, crush em, feed em to your puffers. 
Or find some way to separate them. By hand is probably easiest. OH! Or you could take out ALL the trumpets and put them in your main tank! Could be used as a 'grazing' snake for your fish, and they could bottom feed at the same time!


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

cossie said:


> you can always send me some


Gladly  How Many Ya Want?

I make this offer to everyone.
I'll give them away for free.
All I ask is that you pay shipping.

I've sent the USPS Priority Flat Rate before. It usually costs $4.95 - $6.95 depending on how many I ship. You can your PM me your address and PayPal the shipping costs. I'll PM you back with the e-mail address to send the PayPal payment to.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

Sorafish said:


> Lettuce leaf over night. In morning, pull it out, grab the trumpets, bag em, crush em, feed em to your puffers.
> Or find some way to separate them. By hand is probably easiest. OH! Or you could take out ALL the trumpets and put them in your main tank! Could be used as a 'grazing' snake for your fish, and they could bottom feed at the same time!


Hmmm, I could catch them and crush em. That's not a bad idea. But they will just come back again.

I want to keep my rams alive and continue breeding em, but I want these MTS gone in all my tanks. They've managed to hitchhike to every tank now.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

cossie said:


> you can always send me some


Oops

I just noticed you were in england.
I'm not sure you would want to pay that much shipping for some snails hehe.


----------



## Guest (Jan 7, 2012)

Clown loaches as you know will eat snails. If you have clown loaches, you can keep feeding them the snails. It is their specialty.


----------



## snyderguy (Feb 9, 2010)

Clown loaches won't work. Tried it. Youtube some DIY method of trapping them. Usually people take apart pop bottles and do it that way. Could work.


----------



## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

I believe, though I have not looked this up myself, that there are some restrictions on MTS coming into the USA due to their invasive nature. It might be just Arizona, or my friend might have been completely wrong about it. Either way before you ship them somewhere I would check laws.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

Always a great idea to check your local laws for sure.
As far as I know, there is no law regarding these as long as they don't cross customs. I bought them from a gal in california about a year ago.


----------



## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Add some copper medication to the tanks maybe? It's fairly safe to fish, but deadly to inverts. Just know that you won't be able to ever keep inverts in that tank again if you do. I think there are actually snail poisons out there as well.


----------



## Sorafish (Sep 15, 2011)

Trumpets are illegal in az? Woops? I had one hitch hike from some live plants I bought a petco a few months back.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

bmlbytes said:


> Add some copper medication to the tanks maybe? It's fairly safe to fish, but deadly to inverts. Just know that you won't be able to ever keep inverts in that tank again if you do. I think there are actually snail poisons out there as well.


I could be wrong here ... but I thought activated carboin neutralized the copper meds and mad it habitable for inverts again.

I've thought of rehousing the fish one tank at a time and adding bleach to kill all snails (or even just keeping them in a 5gal bucket for a couple days). I could even hand pick some rams to save them. I could then do a complete water change and add Prime. I use bleach to recharge the Purigen that I use, so I don't see why that wouldn't work.
I'm guessing that it would cause the tank to cycle again though 

I could alkso add a ton of salt and kill the snails that way. But, I think salt would be harder to remove then bleach.

Any thoughts folks?


----------



## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

I wouldn't swear they are illegal here, my friend told me that they are after she looked something up, and I think it was a new thing (as in it being in the last year). Also you won't be able to prevent MTS from coming in! Plants are unfortunately filled with them. I have them in my tanks and it's highly annoying. However now they mostly stay in the substrate which helps it with aeration so that isn't too bad.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

I found some info about the legality of snails, etc .... here's a lot of good reading for anyone interested:

http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=57311

I really don't mind them at all. There are just waaaay too many and I can't stop them from breeding no matter what I've tried. I can barely see the gravel in my community tank right now because there are literally thousands of lil baby MTS moving around.

I've tried reducing the food. I only feed as much as the fish eat before it touched the bottom. I do of course have a lil food on the bottom for all my catfish types. I have even gone to feeding every other day.


----------



## rewindthelies (Dec 14, 2010)

i would say if you dont mind removing our substrate for a few days and letting them all die then do a few large water changes over a period of a week so ou dont disturb to much bacteria. also make sure you dry your nets so they dont "cross boarders".

as far as your rams, id pluck out as many as you can and start the colony over in after the substrate dries. 

i have many of those pests in my pirahna tank but i never see them on the glass so i dont mind. but i have puffers to and my rams never breed :/


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

I ended up moving all the fish and wanted inverts into my feeder tank today. I also moved the filter media to keep the bacteria colony alive in there (I keep a bag of ceramic rings and filter floss in the bottom of all my filters ... just in case). I then drained all but about 1" of water and added a bunch of bleach. I made about a 1:1 ratio, which is what I use to recharge my purigen anyways. I went ahead and thre the purigen bags in to recharge them while I was at it hehe. Then I took a washcloth and wiped down the sides of the tank real good. I let it soak for about 4 hours, then drained the water and purigen bags into a bucket. I am letting the tank dry on the porch over night. The gravel is in a strainer so it will dry faster. Most of the chrlorine should hopefully evaporate. Tomorrow I will rinse the gravel and tank really good. Then, I'll refill the tank with water and gravel. At that point I'll add prime (not sure how much I need) and PH buffer, then let it soak for a few hours. At that point I'll do the tests and adjust the Ph, etc as needed. I know I will almost definetly have a cycle again, but I'm hoping that keeping the bacteria colony alive in the filter will speed things up a lot. I'm thinking I can probably add the fish again tomorrow night as long as the levels are good.

Anyone think I need to wait longer or alter my gameplan in any way?

I plan to repeat this again next weekend for my feeder tank and only keep the ramshorns, frogs and shrimp.
I'm not worried about the community tank because I have plenty of snail eaters in there now.


----------



## CyberBob (Jul 22, 2011)

Little update for anyone interested or might want to try this themselves:

It did kill almost all of the snails
I did a 1:1 bleach\water solution and let the gravel soak for about 24 hrs.
Then, I drained and rinsed it until the water went clear.
Then, I let it completely dry out for 24 hrs.
Then, I added a double dose of prime.

I put in a few ghost shrimp as guinea pigs. They are all doing just fine.
But, I did see a couple snails on the glass about 4 hrs after I added the water.
These are some tough lil buggers. I caught them, and flushed em.
I'm going to wait a couple weeks before I reintriduce fish to the tank.
Hopefully I won't see any more snails. But if I do, I think one more bleach treatment should do the trick. They certainly weren't healthy snails that I caught.


----------

