High Ph and snails

[dax]

I looked in my tank and saw a frigging black snail. I have not bought new fish for over a month. I feed them once a day as I always do. Are snail bad for the tank? My water reading are good except my ph reads about 7.6. Could this be why I have snails.

I read the other post about snails and limiting the food I feed my fish. That was never a problem for the year I had my tank. I'm just confused. Please help.I never seem to get many replies to my questions on the fourm.

 

[Fuzz16]

snails could be there from fish(maybe), plants, or rocks added to your tank. your PH might be a bit high for your fish though. and the snails will overpopulate eventually, id say just remove as many as possible and hope they go away. if you have plants then they will eat them.

 

[dax]

I have fake plants and did not add rocks to my tank. Why would it take sooooo long for these thing to show up?

My tank has been set up the same for a while.

 

[Lotus]

No, snails aren't bad for a tank. They're just another form of aquatic life.

If you want to kill it, kill it.

It's possible that a small snail came in with the water from the LFS. A baby snail could be the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Your pH has nothing to do with your snails. They prefer slightly harder water, in general, but will live in most water.

 

[angel51431]

and to make a note on what someone said, yous pH is not too high for your fish - fish adjust to pHs between 6 and 8 relatively easily and thrive in most cases, as long as the change is not sudden.

 

[MissFishy]

If you dumped the water from your fish store into the tank, you may have dumped a baby in. It's likely it's been in your tank since you put the fish in a month ago, it just took that long to grow up so you could see it. If you have more than one, it's likely they will breed quickly. I think they make your tank even more healthy as they clean up algae and excess food, I would keep them in there, but that's just me.

 

[dax]

oh ok, if i do put that snail back in won't it over populate? Then wont I have aproblem? I only found one snail and have it in a container right now

 

[MissFishy]

If you've only seen one, they need male/female to breed (as I've heard), so just one shouldn't do anything but keep your tank cleaner. I have one trumpet hitchhiker snail in one of my tanks, and he's been in there over a month with no signs of any new babies.

 

[dax]

Thank you all!

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

actually some snails are hermaphroditic.

 

[Seleya]

Depending on what sort of snail it is, it doesnt necessarily need a mate to overpopulate the tank. As YFK noted, some are hermaphrodic. That said, if you saw one snail, you could have hundreds already in your substrate. (yes, hundreds) Or, it could be the first one. I would err on the side of not reintroducing the snail but don't be surprised if you see more. So long as you don't overfeed or otherwise make the tank overly snail-friendly, you should be fine. I just live and let live. Some tanks have snails, some had them, and some never have had them. As long as they don't bother me, I won't bother them.

 

[angel51431]

As you said, you've got fake plants, so there's nothing to worry about. The reason many people avoid snails is that some will destroy plants and can make painstaking aquascaping go to waste. And really, even if it does breed and you wind up with a bunch of snails - they're such nice little peaceful creatures. No need to worry at all.

 

[MissFishy]

Yeah, I know some snails don't need mates, but if this is the type that doesn't need a mate, there are already babies in there...so no point in getting rid of one.

 

[Pure]

I've had an all out war with snails overrunning my tanks. Like has been said feeding less can control them. At the time I couldn't teach this to my wife to save my life. Only 2 things I found worked.

1. Complete and total break down of the tank with bleaching everything and baking the gravel for an hr at 350.

2. Copper Sulfate. It's the main ingredient used in copper safe and in rid a snail. The dosage to kill snails is the same to cure ich for the copper safe it just takes a couple of months for them to die off. People will highly advise against the use of chemicals, but really it's not much different then trying to cure ich. However IME it has little to no effect on MTS, see my reason behind #1.

If you do use copper sulfate, make sure to keep an eye on your ammonia as you can incur a spike from the snail population dieing off.

 

[Seleya]

Yeah, I know some snails don't need mates, but if this is the type that doesn't need a mate, there are already babies in there...so no point in getting rid of one.

True, but popping what he considers a pest back into his tank without knowing one way or the other if it was able to reproduce yet defeats the purpose of fishing it out.

 

[Dan Steveo]

just another mention about ph... most fish as i believe can tolerate about 1 level off what it would say in the books. maybe even more......