What to do if you get aquarium snails

 You have just put together you first aquarium and over the next several weeks you notice a number of aquarium snails appearing.  Now what do you do?  First, you must remember that not all aquarium snails are bad.  They add some benefit by eating dead vegetation and debris.  The down side is that some types of snails will eat your living aquarium plants.

So what is the best way to control the number of aquarium snails?  Most often, snails make it into your aquarium when attached to live plant life and food.  If you are introducing new plants we recommend that you soak your plants in 10 mg/l of potassium permanganate solution for 15 minutes.  Once the 15 minutes is up, thoroughly rinse them off with clean water so that you aren’t transferring any chemicals to your tank.

This simple process should get rid of any aquarium snails and eggs from entering your tank.  Another method to controlling snails in your aquarium is to try and not over feed your fish.  A good rule of thumb is that you should give your fish the amount which they can eat within two minutes. If there is still food in the tank after 5 minutes, you are overfeeding and this will produce more snails.