More bad advice from a LFS Grrrrr!!

Reece

Jakiebabie I had the same problem. My leaves looked like they were being eaten and I kept finding lots of floating leaves, turned out there were a few snails smaller than my nails eating them! Have a very close look, most of mine are out of the tank now but I know there's still a few in there. I just cleaned my tank and did my once every two week full clean, where I take out the decor and siphon the gravel underneath where they usually sit. As I lifted the driftwood I found 3 snails there! You never know where they are...

In case you're wondering, my half clean once every two weeks is where I only change water and do a light gravel siphon.
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Jakiebabie

OH my!! I will look!! Snails!!! Can I leave out a piece of lettuce to see what comes out to nibble? Will that wiork too? Thanks so much for the tip. I had NO idea! Will keep you posted!
Found a baby Swordtail tho!! woohoo

Reece

Ha. Yeah, the snails will have come in your tank on a plant or something. Have you recently bought any new plants? If so that's where they will have came from. Before my new setup with live plants and new fish, I had no snail problems, I had a look in my LFS' plant section and there were snails all inside it. One tip I've recieved prior to this issue is whenever I get a new plant to soak it in salty water, which apparently kills the snail but not the plant.

Not all tank snails eat plants though, so don't just write them off if you ever want them. Great snails are things like Assassin snails, I don't have any myself but I'm aware that they don't eat an awful lot, are fine kept by themselves and they also eat other snails. So if you want you could get an Assassin Snail and he'll do all the hard work for you. They're quite pretty too in my opinion :)

Mikaila31

on the other hand there is nothing wrong with snails.

Reece

I wasn't necessarily saying that ALL snails are bad (as I wrote in my second paragraph), it's just that you want to be careful with the snails you have as most common snails that come through on your plants from a pet store will eat your plants in the tank you have. Obviously, if you want a healthy looking aquarium you don't want dead leaves everywhere from where the snails have eaten them.

Jakiebabie

I was just starting out my first planted tank and added 3 small bunches from the LFS. So you can really see the daily damage getting worse. They don't even have time to grow more leaves before the snails come back each night. Didn't see any last night, theres so much stuff in there and I bet they are tiny yet. Will keep looking. Thanks

Reece

That's alright. Because I have a 10 gallon tank with only 5 plants and 2 bits of decor it was easy to find the snails, even if they're smaller than my nails! You'll spot one soon enough

Jakiebabie

I know and mine is a 75 gallon!! Not funny!!!

Reece

Ha have fun with that