Fish and Aquaria

How to Get Rid of Snails from your Aquarium

So you sit down on day and look at how your beloved fishes are doing, and staring back at you is the underside or the foot of a small snail on the glass wall of your fish tank. What do you do? How do you get rid of this unwanted creature?

First of all prevention is better than trying to banish them snails from your tank. Preventing the invasion of snails is quite simple; make sure that when you buy plants and other fishes, they are from a clean tank that’s well kept at your local aquarium centre. Wash out any plants and ornaments well, before installing those in your fish tank. When cleaning, do not use any harmful chemicals. Now, if you already have snails in your fish tank, you can’t really turn back time and do the latter, but it could and should be done from now on.

If you are already using preventive measures but still get snails, and if you feel up to it, you could remove the snails physically. This is the most common way of snail removal.

Snails that lurk in the very hard to get corners of your aquarium, can be baited out using raw cucumber slices. If you place a couple of slices of cucumber in a clean cup, it will be easier for you to remove the snails.

Another way to remove snails is to introduce snail predators such as loaches, a fish variety that love snails. The loaches will seek any snail and prevent further breeding.

If loaches are hard to come by, or you do not want to introduce them for whatever reason, then you can visit your aquarium centre and buy some fish tank chemical additives that can kill them off. The disadvantage of this method is that you will find yourself with dead snails rotting away. Another disadvantage is that some fishes may also come affected by some extent, with some dying as a result.

save

How to Hatch Brine Shrimps for your Aquarium

If you have an Aquarium of fishes and you want to encourage fish breeding, or your want a low cost way to show your children a bit about nature. What ever the case, here is how to create an environment to hatch your very own Sea Monkeys or Brine Shrimp:

1. Find a clean container; a cleaned better/margarine tub will do fine.
2. Fill with water. If you have chlorinated water, you will need to use an alternative, such as bottled water. It is good idea to allow the water to stand for about an hour.
3. Position the container near a light source
4. Add a tablespoon worth of rock salt (or table salt that’s non-iodized salt or aquarium salt). The ratio of salt to water is  one tablespoon of salt to a gallon of water. Allow the salt to fully dissolve.
5. When adding brine shrimp eggs, you will find they will initially float and disperse on the surface of the water. Add enough shrimp eggs so that it covers the surface area equivalent to circle base of a tea cup
6. Ensure the water is kept to about 25 degrees Celsius (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit)
7. Your brine shrimp eggs will hatch much quickly if you can add a air pump with an air stone so to cause a constant stir of the water in the container

Now all that’s left to do is wait; it can take over a day for the brine shrimp eggs to hatch. Once they have hatched , you can feed them to your aquarium fishes.

Red Wag Platy feeding on Mosquito Larvae

Feed tropical fish brim shrimps (Artemia salina), not me! I feed them freshly caught mosquito larvae, and they love them. Watching them in a sudden feeding frenzy almost reminds me of piranha fish like feeding. I must have placed hundreds of the larvae in my tropical fish tank that measures approximately 1 by 1 by 4 feet that has Red Wag Platy (Xiphophorus Maculatus) and I would say that most of them are eaten within 5 minutes.

I read that this food source is an excellent vitamin source which also triggers spawning too (we shall see). I started with just two fishes and now have about 15.

I do not think you can buy mosquito larvae (live) and I have not deliberately set out to raise them. Mosquito larvae are easily caught if you have a pond or you have left out a bucket of water and after some time you will find mosquito larvae wiggling about in it. I do not want to encourage you to put out a bucket especially if you live in a country that has a Malaria or Chikungunya problem. Oh and watch out where there is mosquito larvae you will should to find adult mosquito (i.e. the ones that bite!)