snails

So I have my planted tanks and they all snails in them and quite a few to say the least. i was hoping someone would have an idea as a good trap. i dont want to kill the snails becuase i feed them to a baby turtle. but right now i use a small cup with a lid and drilled holes in the plastic. then i bait the cup with a vacation feeder. this sometimes haas mixed results. Any one have any other ideas???

THANKS

Snails go crazy over the algae wafers that I feed my plecos, and the most favorite veggie I've found that they enjoy is sweet potato.

So get a sweet potato... Slice it up... put a fork in a piece to sink it and wait till morning... LOL!

You feed the snails to your turtle? Is that good for them? My daughter has 2 red eared sliders and I know they get sick of the pellets every day. I give them all the plants that the fish tear up and some lettuce now and then. I have TONS of snails... I'd love to just feed them to the turtles...

So that's really ok? It won't hurt them?

yea its really ok. what i have is also a red eared slider. my slider loves em it just about all he will eat right now. but its a good sourc of nutrients for them too

If you have live plants, which are very beneficial, you're going to have snails. One way to control their population is a lure consisting of the white, bitter core part of a romaine lettuce head. A few snails are not so bad of a thing; they inhabit most natural environments and actually contribute to the overall health of an aquarium -- provided you don't have an infestation of the durn things. Aside from the lettuce lure, another thing that can help control snail populations is Indian Almond leaf (Find Amy Tan on Aquabid). The leaves lower water pH and thus soften the shells of snails, which provides lunch for aquarium fish. Improbable as it sounds, the leaves really work. If you can't find Amy, try AquaticMagic on Aquabid.

No. This is not an official recommendation.

Ohmygosh i have so many snails! i really dont like them; they are ugly and kill my plants. i can't afford clown loaches (i hear they kill snails) and i dont want to use chemicals. i have tried that lettuce thing but they like eating my pretty plants better. i have to just wait until they climb on the glass then i take them out by hand and flush them, only to find ten more to take their place. i REALLY want an indian almond leaf but i cant buy stuff off the web. it is so frustrating!! i just want them gone!

One thing I did when my snail problem got out of control was to take all the decorations out of my tank including plants and rinse them off with the sink sprayer. I got rid of a whole lot of them that way. Then I got some clown loaches and things have been pretty well under control since then. Since you cannot get the clown loaches I guess you could just rinse the decorations. Of course constantly uprooting plants is not really good for them.

The lettuce thing still works too. Float a hunk for a day or two, then remove it with all the snails and toss it in your garden. But don't expect to cut down on the snail population during the first week or two. It takes a couple of months.

I put 5 snails in my tank and now there is about 50!!! that was only about 2 weeks ago!!! they breed soo fast, my snails are gradually getting out of controll lol x

Most of the reasonable methods for controlling snail population have already been mentioned in the above posts. The only other non-chemical method is picking them by hand. It actually works if you remove snails every day for a week or two.

The next time you want snails, consider the so called apple snails or mystery snails. They lay their eggs above water in a roughly cylinder shaped nest which can be easily removed. On the other hand, the snails get fairly large, so they are easy to pick out of the aquarium, and once you pick them out you may be able to sell them.