Snail Plague - What do I do?

I'll never forget the day Gresham gave me these 4 little black snails, because that was the day I only had 4.

Now I have hundreds of these little buggers. I siphon out probably 50 with every water change. (see attached) Crazy thing is this is only from the front of the glass, I see more in back. And when I fill the tank back up, many have moved to the front already. It's insane.

I can't tell you what kind they are, I can just tell you they are nocturnal. I don't see many during the day, but a few hours after lights out, they are out in force going across the sand, on the rocks and glass.

I am pretty bummed. I am even considering, shutting this tank down or at least a complete break down and clean up.

You see I have this theory that these prolific little bastards are sucking up my calcium to make their shells faster than my corals.

What the heck can I do?

 

They look like little Cerith snails?


Why not "borrow" from a buddy or the lfs if possible, a green serpent star or any star that is predatory.
They may eat all those little snails! I bet your sand is really clean! LOL!;D

 

Sounds like a good oportunity to house a mantis shrimp!

 

I'm a little afraid a mantis would eat my sixline wrasse... but a green serpent star eh? Would that really do it? Could it possibly wipe out an army of these snails? WOuld it harm anything else? :-/

 

I think BL means a green brittle star, please do correct me if I'm wrong. If she did mean a green brittle than it would harm/eat everything and anything that it could catch, snails, shrimp, fish, crabs, etc.

 

Can you take a close up picture of the snails? I'm hoping that they're not pyramid snails?

 

Sure. I'll try to take one tonight. Doing some searching on Yahoo images, they sure look like cerith snails.

Do you have a good pic of pyramid snails? I couldn't find any.


I'm tempted to tear my whole tank apart over these things. It sure is frustrating. No matter how many I take out, they come back in force. I could deal with a dozen, but hundreds is out of control.

 

hehe...Yes, I meant green brittle star....


and yup, they will eat everything they can catch! Maybe not so good an idea then....:

Have you tried trapping them? There was a trap with an old food storage container that had "X"'s slitted into the top (I think it was a bristle worm trap) but since the snails are small, perhaps????

 

one question...why do u wanna get rid of them?

 

;D