Role As Aquarium Pest
Most ramshorn snails are considered minor aquarium pests. They may arrive in a tank as egg bundles hidden in newly acquired plants. Although their red color may make them somewhat interesting aquarium subjects, their hermaphroditic ability to breed prolifically from any two specimens can make them troublesome.
Common practices include treating plants to prevent introduction, various manual methods of control, introducing the snail-eating animals listed earlier, and poisoning the snails.
Soaking the plants in various chemicals may kill off the snails and their eggs. A 10 minute bath in a solution of 20 parts water to 1 part chlorine bleach has been suggested for hardier plants, followed by soaking in water containing a dechlorinating agent. A more gentle treatment calls for 5-10 tablespoons of alum to 1 gallon of water for 2–3 days. A safer alternative may be placing the plants in a quarantine tank, and adding snail poisons to that tank rather than the main show tank.
Manual methods include baiting the snails with lettuce (run it under hot water first and leave overnight), cucumber slices, or food pellets. These may be left out in the open, and removed with their snails, or kept in some container, such as a film canister weighed down with a pebble, and containing holes drilled in it. Crushing the snails by hand as they appear can also effectively limit their population; most ramshorn shells are fragile enough that this is quite easily done.
Snail poisons are generally considered to be a last resort, as most of them are copper-based and are potentially toxic to plants and fish and particularly dangerous to other invertebrates. Even new safer chemicals that do not harm the other aquarium inhabitants may cause damage if large numbers of dead snails are allowed to decompose. For this reason, it is best to reduce the snail population by other means as much as possible before resorting to poisons, and to do frequent water changes afterwards. Some also recommend adding ammonium protection to the tank. Zeolite chips, and various liquid products such as amquel may help in this area.
Read more about this topic: Ramshorn Snail
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