INFESTATION!!! PARASITE, WORMS, SNAILS.... HELP!

HELP!!! I have been infested! My poor new planted tank! ...... I picked up all my plants from various people, stores, etc.... Someone has passed something horrible to my tank!!!!! well, I dont know, some people pay for snails. lol.... but anyway, picture 1 and 2 are of the snail thing, picture 3 I dont know what it is... maybe parasite, worm, or just snail poop... never had snails before. SOMEONE HELP ME! Tell me if I should kill them, cause they might hurt my plants, or when I buy fish, hurt my fish.... or should I leave them? what is it?? if its a cool snail?? And what kinda snail/worm/parasite poisen should I use.... that wont hurt my plants!!!!

Oh yeah, the snails hall ass... if that helps identify.... and the questionable parasite hasnt moved since Ive seen it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I don't know about your worm,,, but the snails are easy, smash em against the glass with your finger. I like to put my new plants into a guppy tank and rinse off the snails, seems to work well. They don't seem to hurt anything they just over run the tank.

lol, smashing them sounds fun.... but isnt there an easier way? like a couple drops of some good old poisen!? So these arent the kind of snais that people buy to eat alge right? there just a pest that will multiply like crazy if i dont take care of 'em?

Can my fish (discus and dwarfs) eat them?

Just get a couple of loaches they will take care of your snail and worm problem.

think they will also demolish my plants wont they?

Not sure if they will eat plants, I have 3 yo yo loaches in my one tank and I love them. They are great scavangers and grow fast. They also will sleep during the day and when they do they look like there dead because they will sleep laying upside down.

Joe I've had a similar problem. At most LFS you can get these things, either in tablet or drop form, that will kill all invertebrates within a few days. It's supposed to not harm plants or fish, just the snails. If not, crushing them is fun, or crush them up good and feed em to your Trophs

Nuka, Go talk to clark he sells this stuff that eliminates snails it worked good for me, Or go get yourself a few loaches they will handle the issue.. I now have clown loaches that I move between the planted tanks and they eliminate the snails in just a few days....

seriously? nobody ever salted a slug? copper is a good tool of snail homicide aswell - even a couple $ in pennies might do it after a night of electrolosys(creates light green copper oxide)


sea salt, table salt, instant ocean... freshwater salt is the only one that wont really work - table salt will lower your nitrates/nitrites


snails are one of the most chemically sensitive critters in freshwater aquaria not too hard to off em or ya can pop em in a ziploc and send em to be puffer food on thursday, all effective methods

oh and 1.004 salinity hasn't bothered my amazon sword also read that at that low lvl freshwater bacteria wont be harmed either(no f'ing up your cycle)

worried about discus.. .there pretty sensitive dude... especially the lil' guys... only as big as a quarter.... .cant do the salt.... unless its regular aquraium salt.

I will go grab some of those tablets from petco, I know the ones you talkin about mikey... thanks everyone!.... and I hate clown loaches. lol

throw a piece of cucumber or green veggie lettuce works to, weight it down and remove it when its covered with snails and toss it out quickest and easiest way to get just about all of them. have also heard of lightly bleaching plants when you get them but never tired it

lol salt is very common in the world hard to believe a discus cant handle it w/e works though!

Good luck sand!

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, I didn't read thru everyones posts completely, but if your going to do something to kill the snails in your tank verses getting something to eat them, make sure you get them out of the tank. They will fowl your water quality rapidly.

Pshh, people! Recommending stuff that never works... The snail you have is something from the Physa sp. and the worm looks like tubifex. Nothing to be worried about. People buy the tubifex to feed to their fish and can be good just stir the substrate to expose them, and letting the fish eat them. For the snails you can get some A. helena or assassin snails, they look cool and can prevent it from happing again. DON'T add loachs unless you are understocked and have smooth sand, DON't add copper as they can effect the fish, You can just smash them and see if the fish eat them. But remember, both can be helpful and can be controlled by feeding less and siphoning them out when doing a water-change.

Caton wrote:Pshh, people! Recommending stuff that never works... The snail you have is something from the Physa sp. and the worm looks like tubifex. Nothing to be worried about. People buy the tubifex to feed to their fish and can be good just stir the substrate to expose them, and letting the fish eat them. For the snails you can get some A. helena or assassin snails, they look cool and can prevent it from happing again. DON'T add loachs unless you are understocked and have smooth sand, DON't add copper as they can effect the fish, You can just smash them and see if the fish eat them. But remember, both can be helpful and can be controlled by feeding less and siphoning them out when doing a water-change.

alternate solution (comes with no guaranty), add one of these, Pea puffer, they only get about 3/4"-1" long but will mercilessly hunt baby snails. you can put a small dish upside down with a little food under it at night then collect the larger snails in the morning, the puffer should keep the population in check. I've heard mention that they can be fin nippers but I haven't seen it in my tank, maybe if they don't have a good food source they get nippy??
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

snails are good for plants....... cmon guys..... no wrong info now. the snails will only eat dead or decaying plant matter. if they eat your plants, they were already dead. i keep snails in my tank and they keep the small amount of algea in check, although now my gouramis and ctenopoma are big enough to eat them so i only have 2 apple snails left

I agree with that, they also help "turn" the gravel over . . . but unchecked the population can exploded, balance is good, too much of anything is bad or at least annoying.

n'est-ce pas?

See... that is what I was afraid of.... after finding out there harmless, I didnt mind too much... then i went down there the next day and I saw like 3x as much.... so, I was just scared it would explode to a million over a month, and that would be terrible.... I actually smashed the hell out of them.. lol one by one... took an hour.... but I got every single one... well, not the first time, but when i came down day 2 with smashing index finger... Now i am snail free!

"ive a snail with this finger"