how do i kill all the snails / leaches in my aquairuim.

[thmandan22]

hello, does any one know any good ways to massively kill all my snails and leaches that somehow got into my fish tank with out hurting my fish?
any thing you might know would be a help thanks dan


- The Snails there teaming up with the leaches, they'll eat us all, there blood suckers, BLOODSUCKERS I TELL YOU. They must be stopped!!!

[Frontosa29]

put pennies in the filters lot os em.....no more snails...

[thmandan22]

ok thnxs
:)

[Adam]

I'm not sure you want to kill them, rather than take them out by hand. Squish the eggs, and take all the leaches and snails out that you can see. If you kill them all, there will be a lot of rotting flesh in your aquarium and it will become quite toxic to your fish. Whatever will kill snails and leaches, must have an adverse on your fish themselves.

[Rudy]

Or you could get some clown loaches. There won't be a snail left in there.

Pennies in the filter huh? Thats a great idea.

[Frontosa29]

loaches sound good...and notice i didnt say kill all the snails and leaches and leave their rotting corpses floating in the aquarium...obviously fish as many of them as you can out w/ a net....but killing each and every one is NEVER EVER gonna work...i mean as long as were talking about your common pond snails who are damn near born gravid...all you need is two miniscule microscopic little bastards in the tank somewhere and the whole problem will reseurface in weeks..now wheres the logic in that....oh and ive worked at pet shops for a good 5 years or so now...used the penny thing on the sump...that means it treats all the tank....your average pet shop set up same water 30 tanks..so it went through cichlids, tetras, danios, barbs...none died..next time you go to the pet store look on the back of a box of coppersafe.."DO NOT USE WITH MOLLUSKS OR CRUSTACEANS" it kills them copper=coppersafe=pennies hence the idea..it works wonders does not hurt the fish...but go w/ your gut....sigh...experience is such a curse...so is common sense at times..

[Rudy]

Frontosa I am not sure if you took it this way but I was serious about the pennies in the filter being a great. Save a fortune on coppersafe.

Cheers

[Adam]

I got rid of all my snails by taking the tank apart, and either changing the gravel, or put it out in the baking sun for a couple days, and make sure that it is spread a lot, so there is sun hitting all the gravel, and then taking the rocks and scrubbing them, and the tank glass, and no more snails. Just make sure all the plants don't have eggs and you are all set. Oh, and I may try the penny thing if I ever have a snail problem again, and I'm glad that it won't hurt the fish.

[Frontosa29]

no rudy i took it the right way...i must apoligize at times im an annoying sarcastic ass....

[Rudy]

We will get along just fine then!

[ReesaPie]

i use aqurium salt in my tanks and have never had a problem with snails (tablespoon per 5 gallons).... but adding that salt all at once is not good for the fish that arn't used to it.... especially for African Cichlids (killed my poor little Kenyi before i knew better) Malawian Bloat i think it was... i've never tried the penny trick (never had to)... but it probably works well

[Boilermaker]

The copper pennies brought this to mind, years ago this older gent. mentioned he used the copper scrub pads in the filters or just in the tank, never tried it myself though.

[SGypsyMermaid]

all you need is two miniscule microscopic little bastards in the tank somewhere and the whole problem will reseurface in weeks.

you think that's something...if they're malaysian livebearing snails(trumpet snails), you only need one!! they're all pregnant females--no males needed! i think it's called 'parthenogenesis'.

[merlyn2221]

I like the penny idea. It leaches just enough copper into the water to kill the invertebrates, but usually not enough to harm the fish.

If you look at most marketed snail killing liquids and tablets in them they have some degree of copper.

I'd try the pennies and pick out corpses as they go. Whey you don't see any more corpses, take out the pennies.

Or you could just go buy Had a Snail at the lfs and pick out the copses then. Just read it carefully before you use it.

[surfdude660]

Save your money on 'snail killer'. To demonstrate how easily copper kills invertebrates, ill tell a little story:

I made my own syphon to save some $. It was plastic hose with .5"pvc on the end so i could direct it. It would suck up gravel so i put a metal ca/mesh on the end. I had 2 snails in my 10 gallon tank, i used the syphon once with the metal (turned out to be copper) head, and the snails were dead the next day. :D :D

If you are going to use pennies though, go with older pennies (before 1970 if possible-i dont know the exact date) new pennies are zinc with just a little copper. :D

Also, freshwater snails are highly intolerable of aquarium salt. Add 1 tbsp per 10 gallons and they will die much faster. Have fun u snail killer.

[thmandan22]

i just cought a huge leach thats 3 inches long and im going to do a little eperiment on him. I dropped a litte peice of steak in their and he i obbsed with it i want to watch him more though thanks. and im gonna try the penny trick hopefully it works
:twisted: :roll: :sgypsy:

[Adam]

A word of caution. I got some snails with some plants I bought yesterday, and I put them in my guppy tank. So today I put some pennies in, thinking about you you said, and I came down tonight, and two of my guppies were dead. I'm not sure if it was something natural, or if it was the pennies. And they were 1960-1967 american pennies.

[thmandan22]

how many Penns did you put in and how may gallons is your tank?

[Adam]

It is a 10 gallon aquarium, with 8 pennies in the filter. Naturally, I washed and rinsed the pennies before I put them in.

[thmandan22]

I put 4 pennies in my 10 and the snails are dieing but slowly and my red tailed black sharks seem to be eating them as they die.
I have noticd tey seem a bit hyper.