Aquarium snail may often find there way into your aquarium without warning, typicaly while attached to one of the new plant or mosses that you have added to your aquarium. Under certain condition, however, these snails can become a problem in the aquarium. Snail populations can become too large if there is too much food provide for the fish in the aquarium.
The type of snail that live in your aquarium and their behavior can help to indicate whether they are helpful snails or pest snails. Knowing the different type of snails that may populate your aquarium can help you to control that snail population. Some snail species is considered to be helpful to the aquarium.
How to control snails in your aquarium
Snails like Nerite snails provide helpfulness, which eat the algae that grows on the aquarium glass, and dont reproduce in the freshwater environment within the aquarium. Trumpet snails are helpful for the same reason that Nerite snails are helpful; trumpet snails burrow into the substrate of the aquarium, which aerate the substrate and prevents the buildup of toxic waste that can develop within the substrate. Assassin snails are also considered to be helpful to an aquariums because assassin snails eat other snails that may be present in the aquarium, helping to control the population of potential-pest snail species.
In contrast, other snail species is considered to be pest snails. Bladder snails are one species of pest snail, mainly because of the rapid rate at which they reproduces; they create jelly sacs that contains their young. Pond snails are another species of pest snail, as these snails creates numerous eggs in short periods of time.
These species tend to be problematic in aquariums that contains excess food; the pest snails will eat the leaf of live plants in the aquarium if they cant find enough food to consume. Pest snails can be recognized by the fact that their shells are small, translucent, and teardrop shaped. The snail population in your aquarium can be controlled in a variety of ways.
Manual removal of snails from the aquarium with a net is one method. Adding food bait like cucumber slices will attract snails to be removed from the aquarium. Adding fish that eat snails, like loaches, is another method of snail control.
However, you should avoid chemical treatment to kill snails in the aquarium, since those chemicals can cause ammonia spike in the water. Ammonia spikes are detrimental to the fish and other creature in the aquarium, so manual removal of snails or the addition of snail eating fish are recommended methods of control instead. Finally, there are a few step that can be taken to prevent snail problems in the aquarium.
One method is to quarantine any new plant that are to be added to the aquarium. This helps to prevent the introduction of any new pest snail species. Additionally, feeding the fish in the aquarium in moderation can prevent excess food from developing in the tank and encouraging an increase in the snail population.
Calcium can be provided to the snails, such as by adding cuttlebone to the tank, as calcium is necessary for the snails to develop healthy shells that do not pit. Finally, if both the pH and the temperature of the water in the aquarium are stable, the snails will remain healthy. Finally, if you can monitor the aquarium for egg cluster produced by snails, you can remove those egg clusters to also prevent the snail population from becoming a problem in the aquarium.
