What to do, What to do?

[aquaholic85]

Well I know all of us has ran into those damn pesky snails that just pop outta no where. Well my question is do you think these snails will eat the Fish eggs? I’m thinking about setting up a breeding tank with java moss but not sure bout the snail thing. I have moss in my other tank but always has snails all up on them.

Do you think i’m better off buy guarunteed ‘snail free’ moss from the net or use the stuff from my other tank? unless anyone knows how to ‘de-snail’ it. Some advice would be nice. info, experience, anything, what does everyone think?

Ryan

[atlantis_child]

Yeah those snails are evil little things, huh…

chr15 8 talks about plant dips and stuff here.:
http://www.celestialpearldanio.com/viewtopic.php?t=164

Might be useful.

– Atlantis

[aquaholic85]

sounds like a lot of work, and whole bleach with plants and fish doesnt seem worth the hassle. if you look around you can find reasonably good prices on pest-free plants via internet.
i really wanna kno if the snails will eat eggs, which i’d imagine they would.

[katkin]

I’ve got loads of snails in my spawning tank and there must be over 20 little tiny fry in there at the moment, so at least some of the eggs must have avoided the snails.OR the snails just don’t eat them! To be honest I don’t mind having the snails in there as they will happily eat any food left over if I’ve inadvertantly overfed the fry.
K

[ste12000]

I have heard of snails eating eggs but never witnessed it to be 100%, i do know that they are safe with fry because as soon as my batches start freeswimming and eating in the bare tank i add maybe 2-3 snails to clear uneaten food.
They spread like mad and i syphon snail eggs out daily, I wish the CPD’s bred as fast as the snails, then we would all be happy :lol:

[atlantis_child]

@ste12000 wrote:

They spread like mad and i syphon snail eggs out daily, I wish the CPD’s bred as fast as the snails, then we would all be happy :lol:

And then we’d all need more tanks, eh. :wink:

– Atlantis

[ste12000]

Yep… Nothing wrong with that.. :roll: :roll:

[aquaholic85]

So either i deal wit some snails or just keep looking around for other ways to get rid of them.
Keep the responses coming folks!!

[celestialdude]

Snails are not that bad… they’re actually quite beneficial for the tank. Not sure if they’ll eat fish eggs, there might be some natural protective egg coatings that help prevent this (pure speculation)… I had tons of snails in my tank and had a first batch of fry. Granted, it wasn’t a HUGE batch but that may have been due to other factors… possibly getting sucked into the filter (I hope not). I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I think if you have lots of Java moss (spawning mops?) then everything will be OK as the eggs/fry can hide easily from all kinds of threats.

Also, in my large tank somehow there aren’t a lot of snails, they seem to die off when they get to a certain size — I think this may be due to the low algae growth — I have lots of plants of different varieties and I think they rob the algae of growth nutrients, thus robbing snails of their food supply.

Now as for shrimp… could that be a bigger threat to fish eggs? I mean, they’re a lot more dexterous and everything, with those many agile arms and pincers. I have some Yamato shrimp in my Celestials tank so that’s a bit of a concern. I’m just hoping that all the crazy Java moss and hair algae will help hide stuff.

[aquaholic85]

yea Dude i hear what your saying bout the snails, i have mostly fake plants in my tank, my fish don’t know the difference and plus i hope i won’t be inthis apt much longer so i want to be settled before i start a planting project. And the Shrimps def. would be weary bout them. they are pure scavengers, vultures of the aquarium floor, and eat whatever is ‘fresh or decaying’. But shrimps are def cool and add that unique touch.

Dude whats your m/f ratio in your breeding tanks, i plan using a 10G?

thanks, ryan

[celestialdude]

I had a 5G tank with 2 males, 2 females, when I had my first batch of fry.

I highly recommend live plants — I have a hunch that the fish actually do notice the difference… for one thing they “smell” different. And more oxygen in the daytime. Lots of benefits with real plants! One of them might be, depriving algae of nutrients so the snails have less to feed on, thus reducing their population. Experiment with it, just my humble suggestion.

[aquaholic85]

thats what makes us addicted to keeping aquariums, always trial and error. Plus, excuse to go to the LFS and get some goodies, even tho you don’t really need nothing. my LFS has CPD’s for 7 dollars, and all supply i could want….jus to rub it in on everyone..hehe..[/size%;”>color]

[ste12000]

I observed my Celestial pearl danios spawning with 4 males in the tank and six females, each female had two male chasing her although only one pushed her into the moss and fertalised the eggs…

[chr15_8]

as said i use a bleach dip. only way i beleive you know for sure your not going to have any snails/pests

its looks alot harder than it actually is it only takes about 5 mins to do and is worth it imo.

also after the steps i have put the plants into a tank with fish and have had no bad effects

chris

[L777]

For what it’s worth, here’s my experience with a couple of issues raised in this thread:

Snails as friends:
I just had 20+ free-swimming CPD fry appear in my tank yesterday (Yeah!!!! I’ll post my conditions in a separate thread). The 10g tank is nearly filled with java moss, and the java moss is swarming with the small cone-shaped live-bearing (Malaysian?) snails. The snails spend most of their time browsing on the java moss without actually eating any of it. I suspect they are sucking off films of bacteria and other microbes. They also keep the hydra population down (I feed microworms to condition the adult CPD, and the pesky hydra catch the excess worms). As far as the eggs/fry go, I worry more about the little green hydra than I do the snails. Also, snail fecal pellets are well known to foster infusoria production. Since the moss is too dense to have seen the eggs before the fry started swimming, I can’t say for sure they didn’t get a few eggs, but I think it unlikely, because of their tendency to congregate within a few short hours around any uneaten food until it is gone — if it is food to them, they find it and eat it.

Snails dying off at a certain size:
I have also experienced this in my tanks that are nearly filled with java moss. My tap water starts out alkaline, but over a couple of weeks, the moss takes out all the nutrients from the water, including calcium. Without calcium the water turns acidic. This nutrient deficiency affects not only algae growth, but also depletes the minerals needed to build snail shells (and when the water turns slightly acidic, the snail shells begin to soften and dissolve — puffer owners know what soft water does to shrimp and snail shells).

Shrimp eating fish eggs:
I have seen reports by killifish breeders that ghost shrimp were observed to “clean” fish eggs — rolling them around in their pinchers and cleaning off any fungus threads that began to grow. The only eggs that were eaten by the shrimp were ones that went cloudy (unfertilized or dead). I don’t know if this would apply to other (amano, cherry, etc.) shrimp or not.

Happy breeding, all!!

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