How to Keep Snails in the Aquarium

Having snails in an aquarium can have its upsides and its downsides. Some of the downsides are that snails can reproduce very quickly, eat all the plants and leave trails of slime all over the inside of the aquarium. Fortunately, snails can also make the quality of your water much better and help to eat the dead or decaying plants that you have in the aquarium. The main thing that the aquarium owner needs to remember is to control the population of snails in the aquarium.

Things You'll Need

  • Natural Predator
  • Leaf of Lettuce
  • Chemicals
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Instructions

    • 1

      Decrease the food supply to the fish in the aquarium. Snails will feed on decaying food that is leftover from fish feeding. Cutting back on fish food will leave fewer leftovers for the snails to eat.

    • 2

      Introduce a natural predator into the aquarium to keep the snail population down. Snails will reproduce quickly and takeover without a natural predator in their environment. You can use a clown loach that will feed on the snails and keep their numbers under control.

    • 3

      Rinse a leaf of lettuce with hot water and place it on the floor of the aquarium before you go to sleep at night. In the morning, you should find your lettuce leaf covered in snails. Remove the lettuce leaf with the snails on it to help control the population. Do this every night until the number of snails is controlled.

    • 4

      Use specialized chemicals that are made for killing snails as a last resort for controlling the population of snails in the aquarium. Because the chemicals can also damage other good bacteria in the water, only use them if you absolutely need them.