The Fishkeeper Friend

A full guide to removing freshwater snail pests

When looking for an algae eater for your aquarium, snails can be a diverse and cheap asset.  However, these little guys can cause a lot more trouble than they’re worth. Recently, I have been trying to cope with an Ich outbreak, and this led me to a new, rather unfortunate discovery: as long as I had snails in my aquarium, the Ich would be there too.  How? You see, snails can carry the disease, but won’t really be infected. This means adding fish back into the aquarium could just lead to the problem all over again. So now a question arises: how do I get rid of them? 

There are a few ways to eliminate these pests from your tank. Today I have decided to go over the main and most trusted five, as well as how well they worked for me.

1. Manual Removal

Out of all five choices for extermination, manual removal is the easiest and probably the one you should try first. The process is simple: Try to find and remove all the snails by hand. If you have snail eggs, scraping them off is an option.

I did this right before treating my live plants with bleach, as they had eggs on them. It worked fairly well, but if you’re looking to get rid of snails permanently then you likely will need to look further than this option.

2. Boiling water

Boiling water is a slightly more efficient way to remove snails. There are two ways to use boiling water: You can either pour it onto the item you are trying to clean, or you can boil the substrate. Don’t try to use boiling or even overly warm water to clean plants, as it can burn, damage, or even kill your plants.

If you want to pour water, the process is easy: just boil the water and pour it over your item. This works well if you need to clean ornaments or a larger amount of substrate that you can’t move. 

The other way to use boiling water is to boil the substrate itself. If you’ve never heard of this tactic before, it’s because I came up with it myself! Simply drain your tank, get out as much of your substrate as you can, and boil it on your stove! This is a fairly easy way to use boiling water, and it will efficiently kill off any snails in your substrate. I would start with the substrate and water already in the pot, and once the water starts boiling, let it do so for about five minutes. Then drain, let it cool in a separate container, and put it back in your tank! 

I did my substrate in batches, since I have a large 36 gal. tank. I took as much of my gravel-and-sand mix of substrate out as I could and boiled it in the largest pot I could find. This worked pretty well, but I would recommend checking your substrate-free tank for any straggler snails that might still be in there before adding your substrate back in again.

3. Vinegar

Vinegar is an acid, meaning it is able to dissolve organics, including snails and their shells. This removal tactic can be used to clean plastic decorations or a smaller amount of substrate. All you have to do is soak your item in a 1:1 vinegar to water ratio for five to ten minutes. Use an unscented vinegar that is already diluted to 5%.

DON’T use vinegar to clean live plants. Like I said before, It’ll dissolve organics!

I didn’t use vinegar to remove snails, as I have no plastic or wood decorations.

4. Bleach

Bleach is a great way to kill snails or their eggs that may be hidden on your live plants. Well, most of the time. Some eggs may have a protective layer to keep them safe from bleach treatment. However, it’s rather rare to see any kind of mature snail survive a bleach dip. 

The process is rather simple: remove your plants from your aquarium, rinse them under a faucet, and proceed to dip them. The bleach to water solution should be 1:19, and only use an unscented bleach.

Some plants are more sensitive than others, and hence the amount of time a dip should take varies. More delicate plants, such as Hornwort, should only be left to dip for at most 50 seconds. More hardy plants, for example, those of the Anubia genus, can be left in for around 120 seconds. There are some in the middle that can last a minute or so like my Amazon Swords, which I dipped for 100 seconds. Make sure to thoroughly rinse the bleach off your plants afterward with room temperature water.

5. Snail killers

Personally, a snail killer should be your last resort, especially if you have other fish or animals in your aquarium. There are multiple options on the market, most of them using copper as an extermination agent. Keep that in mind, as copper can also harm and kill fish. 

I’m not going to provide elaborate instructions on this one, because you should follow the ones provided on your snail killer to be safe. I’m going to be using Seachem Cupramine, since even after I tried the other options, I have recently found more stragglers who I can only assume hatched from eggs that survived the bleach dip.

Dosing for Cupramine is described on the container, but you should only use half the dosage for freshwater tanks. After you’ve finished with a copper treatment, conduct a 50% water change or more, if you want to be on the safer side. As a final check, you can also use copper water tests, which are widely available on amazon.

In conclusion, there are many ways to remove snails, including a few I didn’t mention here. I think the best way to fully remove snails definitely varies based on your tank. Hopefully the Cupramine works, and I’ll update with the results on my plants too. 

Happy fish-keeping!