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I've had a snail infestation in two of my tanks for a while now. At first I was managing the problem with heavy gravel vacuuming, but now it's got out of hand.

A week ago I bought some "Molluzin" (from Waterlife) but had been reluctant to use it because it contains CuSO4. Eventually I decided to try it in one of the tanks (the "cheap" tank with my bristlenoses, clown plecs and pim pictus). It seems to work very well, but will probably take a few doses to kill them all. If that works I will evetually use it in my "expensive" tank (zebras, gold nuggets, golden heterodon and flash plecs).

Anyway, having been aware of the problem for several weeks, having removed all the plants and having hand-cleaned all of the furniture once a week, I was most surprised to see a different species of snail in my "expensive" tank -- it has a pointy shell about 2/3 of an inch long. How did it go unnoticed for so long in a tank I have been watching like a hawk? Am I going to get a second snail invasion?

So, I was wondering whether anyone knew of a good ID guide for aquatic snails (ideally with notes about their lifecycle). Also, I would appreciate hearing your views on using a CuSO4-based medicine in a tank full of plecos. Will it accumulate in the fish's body and cause problems further down the line? I'm hoping to breed several of these plecs eventually and don't want to restrict my chances before I even start.

it has a pointy shell about 2/3 of an inch long

Uh oh, sounds like the dreaded MTS (Melanoides tuberculata).

Uh oh, sounds like the dreaded MTS (Melanoides tuberculata)

Yep, that's the one. Dare I ask why it is so dreaded?

IME, if you take out all the substrate, they're easy to eradicate from a tank. That's not the most popular idea though, I've found

Sounds good to me, as I have nine kuhli loaches lurking somewhere in that tank which need moving to a cooler tank. Since the zebras moved in I've upped the temperature to 30C. I was hoping the kuhlis would just float to the surface, but they seem to be loving it. I need to move them though, so maybe removing all the gravel and bleaching it (or whatever) is not such as bad idea.

Dare I ask why it is so dreaded?

It's the perfect example of a population explosion if there is one. The rate at which it multiplies approaches that of bacteria in a colony (I exaggerate, but you get the idea).

Cool

Should I rehouse my $500 pleco collection while I sit back and watch the show?

A small colony of the indian fresh water puffers will sort out the snails, BAS in Bolton have a good stock, or they did have two weeks ago.

Ian

A great snail site to identify all the different snails in your tank is: http://www.applesnail.net

Puffers might get aggressive to other type of fish. Clown loaches are the best for snails. They LOVE snails and are fun to watch, if you have 3 or more. It's best to get at least 3 or more. I have 5 in my tank and I don't see any signs of snails. All of my LFSs are happy to give me the snails that infests their tanks, which I drop in my tank to treat my loaches.

Clown loaches are fun to watch too.

Best solution to date in a non-Rift tank:


unfortunately this beastie grows and grows and grows.
pretty though. I've seen a 6" specimen (reaching 12") eradicating a fullblown Plague of MTS in a 400 liter tank. It got even the ones hiding in more than 2" of sand!! took the single cat just a few months.....

second best solution:

they definitely eradicated the Plague from my riverine tank! the few MTS in there are burrowed deep, but a few snails is no problem. Any baby MTS (these tend to dwell everywhere) is toast!
Botia striata is very mild-mannered, reaches only 6-8 cm or so, and highly social too.

third best solution:

like #1, this one gets big, very big. It's also a shoaling fish

fourth best solution:

sadly this little gem is highly endangered in the wild, if not already extinct......
B sidthimunki is THE best snailkiller suitable for home-tanks, but it needs to be kept in fairly big shoals, and it's a tiny fish, about 4-6 cm max.
There are a few varieties (another -sub- species?) that get much bigger, like 8-12 cm, but these are very rare in the trade.( maybe from Myanmar?). Botia nigrolineatus is very similar, but I do not know if it kills snails like the sidthi does.

There's much difference between Botia's when it comes to snail-eradication. I had 3 Botia rostrata (they're now Pectorale's, he has 5 now), but those were downright lazy on the MTS.

Hi,
What is that first catfish in your post (the one that gets huge but kicks booty on MTS snails?) I have a plague of MTS in my 240 gallon, they are getting into my filtration system and clogging it. I have numerous loaches in there, they are not taking care of the problem. I am very interested in what type of catfish that is, I don't recognize it, thanks!
Barb

the first fish is Megalodoras uranoscopus

Click the name. It's an active link to the Cat-ELog page.

sidguppy, aren't the Botia striata (zebra loach) fin nippers. I've heard of a few occurrences of them doing so. I didn't want anything to hastle my angelfish.

Clown loaches, I think, are still far best. When they see snails, they just fight each other for them. There has been no reported aggression or fin nipping with them.

I have 4 striata's in with Corydoras robinae, Red Rasbora's and even small Rhineloricaria sp; not a single nip.

the whole trick is keeping in a group, a single or duo might very well get in the nipping.
AFAIK striata's are actually very docile. I had horae's in the past, and those are truly terrible.

Clownloaches are very nice, but they grow really big (1 foot in length, 6" in height; not counting fins), they're shoalers as well.
They need a whopping big tank....just like Megalodoras. that one isn't a shoaler though.

I still have to stick up for the clown loaches. They do get big, but very slowly. In the wild, they get to big abou 12", but in captivity, the largest reported is about 8". Normally, they stay under 6" in length, even in a big tank.