Petshrimp.com Discussion Forum

Hello I’m new to this forum and I’m desperately seeking an answer to my question.

I have a tank which I’m successfully keeping and breeding Cherry Shrimps -- however i also have a few small snails in it that I don’t want.

How do I kill the snails without harming the shrimps?

Are there some chemicals that won’t hard the shrimps - or some kind of predator? I have always used Clown Loaches to rid my tanks of snails but I think they would eat the shrimps.


Thanks
Matthew

I strongly urge you to perform searches on this topic...even if it takes a few hours to sort through your results. While you're at it just look over the rules again. The etiquette in this forum is to read the rules very carefully first before posting anything. After reading everything on this website and performing a few hours worth of searches (maybe even a few days worth) most imminent questions will have been answered. If any questions still remain unanswered *then* you can ask it in the forum.

There is no reason to try to kill your snails. You can find out more if you do the searches.

As far as I know, the only way to get rid of the snails is to physically remove them. To my best knowledge, any predator placed in the tank to remove snails will also feast on your shrimp as well.

Mustafa

I read your reply and feel that you have come across a little bit harsh and abrupt with me. Maybe its just the way I read it. I’m sure you don’t want to make new members feel like this.
I have spent hour’s researching the matter. I have searched the internet, which resulted in me finding your website, I then searched your website and could only find people liking snails and that's why I joined up and waited 5 days to be activated and asked my question. Trust me, if I could have found the answer I wouldn’t have waited 5 days for you to activate me. I have read your rules and don’t think I have gone against any of them.
Snails to me are a nuisance – to the extend that if I can’t combat them im going to get rid of my shrimps – which I don’t want to do. If I leave them to there own device they soon overrun the tank and look unsightly, they also seem to make the water stink. I don’t like snails and I don’t want them – simple as.

Justrick
Thanks for your comment – I think I have come to the same conclusion – any chemicals seem to kill the shrimps as well, predators will most likely eat them. I even read about putting a bag of pennies in the tank and the copper kills the snails – but I would imagine they would kill the shrimps as well. I’m at my wits end and was hoping for an expert to give me the magic answer.

The best way to get them out is physical removal. Try this: tie a piece of zucchini to a string and lower it to the bottom of the tank, with the string hanging out. The snails will climb onto the zucchini to eat it and you can carefully pull it out so the snails don't fall off. You can use a turkey baster to remove any eggs you find. If these are pond snails, you are not going to be able to eliminate them completely... but really, unless you are overfeeding (which is bad for your shrimp anyway), they should not "take over" the tank, and if you are changing the water often enough it should not get stinky. If these things are happening, you have another problem to root out, the snails are an effect not a cause.

mwilde wrote:Mustafa

I read your reply and feel that you have come across a little bit harsh

Mwilde...my goal here is not to gain as many members as possible by making them feel warm and fuzzy (actually I delete inactive members who never posted every month). My goal is to build up a solid shrimp hobby by helping people *to help themselves and become knowledgeable in their own right*. If you are hardheaded, this is not the right forum for you. If you want to be part of a community you have to abide by its rules.

Absolutely *nothing* I say here is personal. I just do my job by enforcing the forum rules and guiding the forum, and the hobby, in the right direction. There are lots and lots of other forums where you can just sign up and start asking questions that have been asked gazillion times before. This forum just "ain't it." People come here for high quality information without having to search through repeated "clutter."

Not only have you just broken a rule *again* by criticizing how "harsh" I am (and that you had to wait 5 days to get activation) but you showed that you are just not willing to search sufficiently. If you had actually done the search you would have found out that we have discussed this topic numerous times and the consensus is (not just in this forum) that you need to manually remove the snails if you want to get rid of them. Many people, like me, don't mind them and at times it even makes sense to seed them in a tank.

So, this is the very last warning to abide by the rules. Topic closed.

EDIT: "mwilde" banned since he decided to make a separate inflammatory, juvenile post (now deleted) letting out his frustration in the most inappropriate way possible.