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.

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