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Hi All,

Like most people I have a excess number of snails in one tank and given time it will spread to others somehow. My main tank is kept in check by a Pakistani loach (Botia almorhae). While a great fish it does seem to annoy the others a bit and was purchased to just eat snails. It grew very quickly to needing a bigger tank.

Clown loach (Chromobotia macracanthus)does the same but again gets bigger than I would like for my little 30l tank. Getting rather fed up fishing them out by hand once a week. Lettuce and other tricks have been used but not real long term control.(Both the clown and the Pakistani loach get along but sit in my biggest tank now)

Looked at assassin snails Anentome helena but they are supposed to eat your fish if they are slow or small so not a great idea for anyone who likes bottom feeders.

Any suggestions for a cat fish or small loach that can happily stay in a 30l tank and likes to eat snails? Not keen on buying more loaches that out grow as it just causes me more problems later. I'm slowly sorting my issues out on over sized fish and intend to work hard to prevent getting back into them.

Hi JamesFish,
I use trumpet snails in my egg boxes, but they can get out of hand when I dump the fry into tanks, so I use Assassin snails in my fry tanks and have never had any issues. I have never seen it but, If they were eating a Cory fry, it died and missed being sucked out in a water change. As I said tho- I have never seen any aggression from the Assassins- towards fish.. but, they attack and eat other snails so I don't trust them with Rabbit's or other nice snails. I like the Botia but, as you mentioned they can be nippers.
Cheers,
Don

I have a Burmese loach (Botia kubotai), and he's fantastic, ate all my snails, only gets to be about three inches long, (and since he's tube shaped he produces hardly any waste), and is very friendly; plays with the corys a lot. If you have fish that like to sit stil a lot, though, he might annoy them; always bumping into my Ancistrus.

I would second Donpetty on the assassin snails being catfish-safe. (Sorry, I know you said you didn't want them!) We haven't kept any loaches in our smaller tanks because they can pester calmer fish.

It's kind of a pain because you have to set it up and empty it, but I use a snail trap like this one. I set it up before going to bed and empty it the next morning to get rid of trumpet snails. (We feed them to larger tanks with loaches or more assassin snails.) Warning: I found a juvenile corydoras in there once, but that was right after I set it up, so I let him out & there wasn't a problem - so you need to keep an eye on it. The cherry shrimp get caught in there sometimes too.

Did a quick lookup on the Botia kubotai and found they are 15cm max but tend to stop at 10cm so good size for the tanks I want to use them in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botia_kubotai havent seen any in local shops but will keep an eye out as they appear to be peaceful small and very useful. Thanks for pointing me that way.

There's Botia striata aswell, usually doesn't get much bigger than 10cm either.
If you have space it's best to get a few of them though. Most botias afaik can nip fins and sometimes try to school with other types of fish if they're too few (had a couple pakistani loaches temporary in one of my tanks that decided to follow my old siamensis around, he did not look amused ), they seem to behave better towards the other tankmates if they have others of their kind to bother instead

I have had good success with Horsefaced loach and yoyo loachs on trumpet snails ,they don't mess with the other fish and are fun to watch.The horse face will disappear for days at a time when they bury them selves in the sand and they will try to fly so beware of that

Found at local fish shop a pygmy loach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_loach

Is supposed to eat snails and gets to a max of 2" so ideal for my smallest tank.

If anyone is interested it cost £10 and so far has ignored the baby fry in the tank. Was a bit scared till I made a small slate cave for it now it seems much happier.

Pygmy loaches do much better in small groups, the larger the better. Since there is only one, it will probably be more timid. I've wanted some for a while, but my LFS never has any .

For anyone interested the loach is doing fine, slowly making an impact on the snails but as he's small and have so many snails in that tank got his work cut out. Is leaving my baby fry alone as well which is a plus. Will try and grab a picture but when ever I go near tank with a camera he hides.

Assassin snails completely eradicated all the pests in one of my tanks. Never heard / had any problem with them preying on livestock.

Moved the loach today its not cut out for the snails more interested in the flake / wafers going in for the fry.

Had a quick read on other threads looks like I will need to put the yoyo in for a bit when I get time.

Other methods suggested are salt, chemicals and 3-5 loaches and simply don't have room in the tanks for these numbers or want to kill my fish.

Previously for 6 months my 2ft stayed clean after being drained, gravel removed, filter swapped, ornaments cleaned and tank scrubbed with vinegar. Washed out the tank with water well afterwards, left to completely dry out before another wash and being refilled.

Sadly they are back suspect from my smaller tank as just saw 2 large ones then the evitable has happened. More arrived and so I have moved my little loach to try and counter but its a fight I'm sure I will lose.

Sorry he doesn't like the camera so was best I could get.

The little guy has let me down he's keeping them down but not under control. Have resorted to placing the algae wafers into little clay saucers and sinking them. The snails go in after the food so after placing in 2 hours later you can pull out 30-50 snails.