Assassin snails ( Anentome helena) ambush and eat other snails, even those that are much larger in size. Method #5: Quarantine A snail infestation typically happens when you overfeed your fish. The excess food attracts pesky pests and encourages them to reproduce. If you notice snails in your tank but you didn’t intentionally add them to the aquarium, they probably came with plants or decorations. Not just that, but such chemicals can kill lots of snails at once. This will release ammonia which is highly toxic to fish. The dead snails will pollute the water and put the fish at risk,” Yarbrough says. “You could also bleach the tank and start over, but you have to remove the fish first, and this will kill the beneficial bacteria.”

If you have a plague of stubborn snails, it’s often easier to manage the population than eradicate them altogether. Thankfully, there are safe and natural methods you can use. “It may take a while, but you can greatly reduce their numbers with some patience and diligence,” Yarbrough says. 1. Manually remove snails

Method #1: Less Food

Paradise fish target snails although they can be a little pugnacious with smaller, more delicate fish, and lots of cichlids like Convict cichlids eat snails. Some fishkeepers actually breed pest snails to feed Pufferfish in another tank. A diet of snails helps puffers to keep their teeth ground down, and they make up many of their natural diets in the wild. Snail-eating freshwater snails In using this method, I discovered that zucchini, lettuce, and cucumber make the best bait, but that will generally depend on what’s the natural diet of your pest snails. Let’s start with the most straightforward method. You can manually take the pest aquarium snails out of your tank. Most snails lay eggs on plants. When you buy a new plant and add it to the tank, you might be adding snail eggs unwillingly, as well – especially if you’ve bought the plant from the pet store. Getting rid of snails might sound cruel. They are living creatures that are inhabiting your tank, just like fish or shrimp.

Also, most chemicals will kill other intervertebral pets, such as shrimp. Take your blue tiger shrimp out on time! If anything else, snails will hate the smell of vinegar! They’ll do all they can to get away from it, and this can include coming out in the open. This can help you take them out of the tank using other methods.By keeping anubias and not other plant species, you’re getting rid of one food source for your snail. Most snails won’t even eat a rotting leaf of anubia as they hate the taste! 10. Regular Water Changes If you are a longtime aquarist or are planning to be one, chances are you have either experienced or will experience a snail infestation in your aquarium.

Premium fish food – using a variety of foods provides your fish with essential vitamins and minerals, keeping them healthy It’s difficult to completely eradicate snails from any aquarium once introduced, as the baby snails can penetrate pipework, filters and media, and hide in places where even fish can’t get. Tadpole snail eggs can hatch after all the adults have been removed. Use several of the methods above like physical removal, a snail trap and snail-eating fish to stand the best chance of eradicating them for good. But it may take weeks or months. Why do aquatic snails reach plague proportions? While this method likely won’t get rid of all the snails in your tank, it can help you reduce the population. Unfortunately, they are also pests that can disrupt the natural balance of your tank. They’ll eat live aquatic plants, increase ammonia levels, and ruin the life quality of your fish.Yarbrough says unwanted snails are stowaways that usually arrive with new live plants or fish. They even hitchhike on driftwood, gravel and fish feces. They can enter as eggs, babies or full-grown adults.