Pyramid Snails

[Atomikk]

Hey guys, it seems that what once I thought was my turbo snails spaning, turned out that it was a 'soupfull' of pyramid snails. I have a lot of them as they climb the side of the glass and are on LR. I did start to notice that they are on the clam as well. For the last two days I have been taking the clam into a container, and tried to remove the snails by shaking them off. I cant fathom doing this every single day until they are all gone since there seems to be too many of them.

I bought a 6-line wrasse, but it doesnt seem like its doing anything. It is just swimming around, looking for pods. Has anyone had any experience exteriminating these pests out of their tank?

Thanks a lot.

[Poontang]

I had an infestation that ended up killing 3 of my clams and 3 turbo snails. I did exactly what you are doing, manually cleaning the clams with a toothbrush and a pair of tweezers, removing hundreds of them a month. Then one day the infestation just disappeared. I am not sure if it is because of an unseen predator, or my sixline wrasse, that took care of the pyramid snails. Watch out for their spawn, they lay thousands of eggs in a jelly like matter around the shells of the clams.

[ajx22]

You're looking at hand removal in order to be truely effective.

Get out the tweezers - :(

(It sucks - been there - done that - not fun... but persistance pays off)

Sorry,

[CroatianGuy]

I had them a year ago. as advised toothbrush and a bucket. check your snails as well. do you have any cerith snails in your tank, baby cerith look like pyramid snails.
here is a pic from my thread

http://www.aquariumpros.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=12670&highlight=snails+clam

[Atomikk]

well, what I am going to do is try to take out as many as I can through the clam shake method. The tweezer thing is out of the question since I would be more inclide to sell my entire tank, then to pluck them one by one.

[lotus02]

Shaking your clams will only stress them out if you don't want to use tweezers then use a toothpick and flick them off.
As I have mention in several threads the yellow wrasse and scooter will help also scooter hunts at night when pyramids are most active.
You can also check out this site there are many people that have gone through this problem. http://www.clamsdirect.com/

[alex9421]

I had pyramid snails as well about a year ago, but after adding a sixline wrasse and scooter blenny I haven't seen them since. I never actually saw either fish eating the snails, but the snails are gone. Other than that I would just manually remove them. Good luck.

[kgolem]

The infestation in my tank tended to congregate on the glass after lights out. Then I was able to remove them with the help of a cleaning magnet.

Start shopping for new snails as you will likely lose some of what you have now.

[Monti]

For the last two days I have been taking the clam into a container, and tried to remove the snails by shaking them off.

Webdocks suggest that the clam is what they are after. Can you clean him off very well once and leave him in Quarantine for a while? Eventually, the snails will consume what ever food they have available and starve to death. But you don't want to feed your clam to them.

Just a thought.

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[Atomikk]

for those who said that a scooter blenny would work, how big was the infestation? And how long before you got rid of the problem? And finally, did you have to do both (clean the glass, and use a sixline and scooter blenny) to get rid of them all?

thanks.

[CroatianGuy]

i would say do manual removal, and fishes as a back up.

[alex9421]

I second that, I did manual removal on my 2 clams as well as adding the scooter blenny and six line. I don't know how long it took, maybe a month. I haven't seen any for a year now.

[retro]

Thanks for the pictures of the pyramid snail, CroationGuy. I removed a few from a new clam I quaranteened a few weeks ago. I'm keeping an eye out in case there are more.

Does anyone have a picture of the egg mass from these snails they can post?

[CroatianGuy]

they are small jelly mass,clear in colour with white eggs.they are usually in between ridges of the calm shell.best thing is to brush shell with soft toothbrush in a separate bucket with tank water.make sure you get in all ridges.

[retro]

they are small jelly mass,clear in colour with white eggs.they are usually in between ridges of the calm shell.best thing is to brush shell with soft toothbrush in a separate bucket with tank water.make sure you get in all ridges.
I'll do this today. Thanks for the info.