Snails

[stroppy]

i seem to have adopted rather a lot of snails, my filter is covered in them any ideas on how to get rid of them without harming anything else ?

[Lilylady]

Good luck. In all my ponds, and all the years I have ponded, I never could eradicate them. Just consider them part of the ecosystem. If the fish can get to them, they will be history.

[Squidhead]

What kind of snails? One way that helps with aquariums is put a piece of lettuce in and wait a while until they are all over it Then scoop out the snails with the lettuce and keep repeating until they are gone. This method usually doesn't rid the snails completely but gets them under control until you can remove there food source, whick is usually algae and excess fish "crud". I would imagine in a pond this is almost impossible. They only method that works without doing anything is snail eating fish. In a tropical aquarium clown loaches are fish of choice, they wont leave many if any. I don't know if there is a cold water similar type of snail eater. I thought Koi would do the job.

[koikeepr]

Snails suck! They can get trapped in filtration and clog things lickety split. Also, they can die in their shells and it takes a while to take notice of it, and meanwhile their corpses are polluting the pond. There is not miracle potion to killing snails. You've got to manually pick 'em off and trash 'em.

[cauzeneffeckt]

i have tons of small ones in my filter

[stroppy]

no idea what sort they are, must have come into the pond on plants i guess ... i will try the lettice idea squidhead.. i dont see any in the pond they all seem to be in my drum i will give it a good wash out when i close the pond as i dont really want to disturb it at the moment but nice to know im not the only one :0)

[OldMarine]

So far I haven't had that problem in my pond. For years now I have had trap door snails (Japanese live bearing snails) in aquariums and pond. I was told that by having the larger trap door snails, they will forage and eat algae as well as any small egg masses layed by smaller snails. Not sure if that is true or not, but my pond hasn't been infested with any smaller fast breading snails at all.

Happy ponding,
Rich

[Squidhead]

So far I haven't had that problem in my pond. For years now I have had trap door snails (Japanese live bearing snails) in aquariums and pond. I was told that by having the larger trap door snails, they will forage and eat algae as well as any small egg masses layed by smaller snails. Not sure if that is true or not, but my pond hasn't been infested with any smaller fast breading snails at all.

Happy ponding,
Rich
Well that's something I didn't know, but sounds like it works. I used to use the clown loaches and move them from tank to tank if the population exploded. Usually just getting the water settled worked enough to control the pond snails, but not eliminate them. They actually are usefull if you can keep them under control. They can eat algae off the leaves of the finest leafed plants. Otocinclus Cats also do a good job, but they even have limitations of where they can go even with their tiny size.
Stropy, if I where you, I would go with your plan of removing them before winter shut down and hope no eggs survive and hatch next year. If they do, then try the trapdoors as a clean up crew. At least they, like Rich said, are livebearers and I believe only have a few babies per year, so the population won't go nuts. After they clean out all the snails, you could always collect them and even sell them to another ponder if you don't desire to keep them.

[Lilylady]

So far I haven't had that problem in my pond. For years now I have had trap door snails (Japanese live bearing snails) in aquariums and pond. I was told that by having the larger trap door snails, they will forage and eat algae as well as any small egg masses layed by smaller snails. Not sure if that is true or not, but my pond hasn't been infested with any smaller fast breading snails at all.

Happy ponding,
Rich
They do a good job. But that is till the koi are big enough to eat the big snails. Were good while they lasted.

[OldMarine]

That's where I may be fortunate. My pond is only 365 gallons and I only have shubunkin's. The only thing that has created a problem for the snails would be the racoon raid I had in June. Racoon's appearently like the fresh meat of snails along with the fish. Fortunately they didn't get any of my shubunkin's. I responded right away to the noise in the back yard (outside our bedroom window) in time before the racoon could do any more damage. I have since secured the breach in the six foot vynal fence. I also have installed driveway motion sensors to alert me of any critters attempting to climb the fence at that one weak point. I have also learned that Racoon's don't like aluminum baseball bats.

Happy ponding,
Rich

[OldMarine]

Just as a follow up on my last report on the using the driveway sensors strategically locationed to worn me of any racoon intrusion. My dog Mr. Button" and I would go alert every time our sensor would alrm. We would run out the door with baseball bat in hand, and put the fear of GOD into them. We never did catch up any of the racoon's, but came close a few times. Just as a back up I purchased a live animal trap to relocate the racoon if I could ever catch one in the trap.

As far as the trap door snails go, I will have to buy some more this coming spring from Hoshi Koi in Puyallup, WA. I have managed to scoop up my remaining snails last fall and put them in a fifty gallons aquarium in the house until spring. They are extremely hardy like my shubunkin's, and I only brought in for the winter to see if they would have more babies in the aquarium. They did, and they are going to be big enough to put out into my pond this spring with the Shubunkin's and adult snails.

[Meganne]

sounds like you can forgo the snail shopping being you have a viable group reproducng?
but it is a good excuse to go to Hoshi Koi.

with the name Mr Button you take things don't take a turn and a racoon gets him! Mr Button makes me thing smallish dog! and racoons can be biggish!!

[wvairman]

I hope it's not these, although they stay small they reproduce fast. http://fr.academic.ru/dic.nsf/frwiki/1328286

[OldMarine]

We seem to get a lot of these in aquarium plants and are extremely hard to get rid of unless you have smail eating koi or other fish. The other problem with the small snails noted about is that that with infest the filtration system in the pond where the fish can't get to them. I highly recomend sticking with the larger trap door snails that won't be eaten once they are adults. When the trap door snail have babies in the pond the koi and other fish those little bit size morsals.

[Lilylady]

Old Marine, I tried the trap door snails. 3 times. My koi just ate them. All 3 times. But I do have big koi.

[Will]

I've got loads of trapdoors, of all sizes. I've found them in the filter media, and every day clean them out of my leaf basket and skimmer net. And to think, I started with just a handfull last spring. I don't think those little bladder or ramshorn snails can stand the cold, as I had become infested last fall (plants), but this spring all I can find is large and small trapdoors. Of course, we get a tad colder here.