What will eat small aquarium snails?

Answer 1

Clown Loaches LOVE aquarium snails. Clown loaches are regarded as a natural way of controlling an infestation of small snails in the aquarium

Answer 2

Loaches, puffers & paradise fish. The kuhluli loach does a great job at eating snail eggs though doesn't do very well at the actual snails. The clown loach does a great job at eating the snails though gets pretty big. There are some smaller loaches sidh. . . I don't remember the latin name though this loach doesn't get very big and is great at small snails. Puffers do very well though they like to taste other fish as well. There's an indian dwarf pufferfish that is a true freshwater variety that stays small and would do well against small snails. The larger snails you can see and crush. You can also take a jar, bowl or plate, put some food on it right before you turn off the light then come back a few hours later or first thing in the morning and take this out to get rid of some of the snails.

Answer 3

Lots will eat them, but you have to consider the size some of these fish will get, compared to the size of tank you may have. Clown loaches will eat them, but they'll also reach 12" as an adult and should be kept in groups of 3+. If your tank isn't big enough for these, consider kuhlii loaches, or a smaller species. You can also set up a small species tank for a fish like a dwarf puffer, which need to eat snails to keep their teeth worn down. Some cichlids will also eat them.

You can also just bait the snails by using a piece of lettuce and weight it down with some gravel. The snails will crawl onto it at night to eat, and in the morning, you can remove the leaf and all the snails on it. Repeat this as often as necessary to get them under control. If the fish also eat the lettuce, put it in a small plastic container and cut a hole big enough for the snails to get into it, but not the fish. Then add some gravel to weight the container.

Even baby snails need to eat, so make sure you're doing a good job with vacuuming the gravel - this may be enough to keep some species, like Malaysian trumpet snails, under control.

Answer 4

Loaches and puffers are good, but some grow quite large and wouldn't be recommended for a smaller tank, and puffers aren't good community fish.

You're best bet to get rid of snails, float a piece of lettuce in the tank. Once you see a bunch of snails accumulating on it, dispose of it. Then keep adding lettuce until you don't see any more snails. But keep an eye on the tank, there could be baby snails you don't see yet, and they'll start the cycle all over again. So I'd keep floating the lettuce for awhile even after you don't see any. Stay away from the chemicals the claim to get rid of snails, they don't work.....

Answer 5

Snail eating fish - The first and best suggestion in my opinion is the Introduction of snail eating fish. Many of the Loaches are reported to help control the snail population, such as the Clown Loach, (Botia Macracanthus)shown in the picture. This fish will quite happily dine on your snails. They can get to be rather large though, so I would not recommend them for a tank of less than 30 gallons. The Skunk Loach (Botia horae) is another of the snail eating Loach family. They also get to be fairly large. The Upsidedown Catfish (Synodontis multipunctatus) also eats snails, again can become 10 inches (25 cm.) in length. Puffers (Tetraodon species) also do well at eating snails, but consider that many are very aggressive and you need to carefully choose their tank mates. Many of the puffers also require brackish water. For you cichlid lovers, the Malawi Cichlids (Pseudotropheus Melanochromis) will also eat snails.

Answer 6

Loaches and puffers are the most common ones. There are others as well, I just can't remember them right now.

The method I like to use to get rid of snails is to weigh down a piece of lettuce with one of your decorations. After a couple hours, snails will be covering it. Flush it down the toilet and repeat if there's any more snails.

~ZTM

Answer 7

there is one fish that could try this yet its a brackish water variety, the Puffer fish, they actually choose issues like snails to devour by way of fact it trims their enamel down. and that they seem to be a carnivorous fish meaning they devour specially different fish and bloodworms and something yet flake food.they're very wonderful fish yet they could purely be by utilising themselves by way of fact they're going to nip and bite the the fins.

Answer 8

Clown loaches(they grow 12" but it takes them a long time)
Brown Knife (around 15" also a long time)
Black Ghost Knife (they eat them when they are around 6", they grow 20" very very long time)

Plecos also, they suck them out of the shells and sometimes even eat the shells.

Answer 9

Loaches, and of them though clown loaches I think do a faster job any loach fish will take care of the problem. you cant prevent this problem but you can get a little bit of control over it by checking your live plants when you buy them.

Answer 10

GET AN EEL I HAD ONE AND HE ATE EVERY ONE OF THEM