overtaken by snails!

[silylily]

I need help. I have a 36g aquarium with 6 corydoras, 11 ember tetras, 4 fancy guppies and 2 scissortail tetras. Tank life was blissfull until I got 3 plants from an aquarium store. Looking back I could have prevented it, there were puffers in the tank which feed on the snails and I wasn't thinking and didn't take too much trouble in washing off the plants before putting them in. Now my tank is overwheled with little snails. They are dirtying up my tanks and clogging up my filter. I have taken a couple of batches back to the store where I got the plants so they could at least be food for something else but the last time they didn't seem too happy so now I don't know what to do. They are so cute and happy and a few wouldn't be bad but they are taking over the tank. Is there a humane way to kill them or somewhere that I'm not thinking of that would take them? :HP

[AngelMom]

1. Make sure you are not overfeeding ... that's the #1 cause of snail population growth

2. Place a piece of lettuce in that tank overnight and pull it out in the morning before you turn any lights on in the tank. Repeat as often as required to remove most of the snails.

[silylily]

Thanks...any tips on how to know how much is too much? I've had fish for years and have never seemed to have this problem before but since I upgraded from 10 to 36g and a larger population of fish I can't seem to get it right. I feed them Hikari tropical micro pellets-a good pinch twice a day and at night I throw in 3 or 4 shrimp pellets for the corys. About once a week at night I substitute bloodworms for dinner as a treat. It doesn't seem like too much but am I wrong?

[AngelMom]

Only feed as much as they will eat in about 3 minutes ... any more is overfeeding. Remember, their stomach is only about as big as their eye. ;)

[silylily]

Wow that really put it into perspective, I imagined the stomach to be bigger than that, thanks for your help! :o

[herbs275]

clown loach did it for me. got my setup w/ the snails. was cool till i had 100+ of them. can always sell back the clown loach. it will be certainly be big and healthy lol

[AngelMom]

clown loach did it for me. got my setup w/ the snails. was cool till i had 100+ of them. can always sell back the clown loach. it will be certainly be big and healthy lol

Not a good idea since clowns need a 75 gallon of larger tank, plus they need to be in a school.