Question about planted aquarium and fishless cycling

Nice to hear your problem has gone away.  

Keep up the good work and your fish should thrive.  

For the snails, you need to remove them before your have unfixable situation.   If I am not mistaken, most likely these are pond snails which will reproduce very quickly if there is a surplus of fish food in your aquarium.   Each of them is a male and female in one.  So when two of them mate, both will lay eggs.   Before you know it, you can pick out dozens of these little pest snails every day while your action will have no impact on their population.  

If somehow your pond snail population gets out of hand, you may use the the methods in the following article to fix it.
How to Get Rid of Pond Snails in Home Aquariums


By the way, I'd love to see some photos of your aquarium.  Or maybe a video.

Congrats for being on top of the problem. There is a product from Acquatic Pharmaceuticals called Dimilin and another from Jungle Labs called Anchor Aways which are used to kill pond snails without affecting the fish. However, you should follow the instructions to the letter especially when the second application is due to avoid adverse and unintended effects.

(05-10-2016, 03:45 AM)remnant Wrote: Congrats for being on top of the problem. There is a product from Acquatic Pharmaceuticals called Dimilin and another from Jungle Labs called Anchor Aways which are used to kill pond snails without affecting the fish. However, you should follow the instructions to the letter especially when the second application is due to avoid adverse and unintended effects.

I would not recommend to use any chemical to kill pond snails. When it is a chemical compound, there are always side effects. It is like saying mosquito spray will not affect humans, but it is still harmful to us.

Fish might not drop dead because of some snail killing stuff, but they are certainly affected.

The best way to deal with pond snails is to make sure there is no leftover fish food after every feeding. They feed on the leftovers. Cut off their food supply will limit their reproduction capability.

Physically remove them will work only if they do not get unlimited food source.

Then there is biological solution. I use Assassin Snails to kill them. It might take a long time for it to have an effect on their population, but it will eventually work (as in my case). Assassin Snails are also pretty good looking, and they can make a good addition to your aquarium. They also do not reproduce quickly at all, since they have separated male and female snails, and only lay a few eggs at a time.

Thor or others,
Got an issue I could use some help with. But let me catch you up.
All the guppies I bought from the pet store ended up dying. The last to dye had it's scales kinda raised one other did as well, so I think maybe it was dropsy. But one or more of them delivered and I had 2 fry that survived and are now about 10-12 weeks old. Lost one of my shrimp but the other has gotten big. My pleco is getting big and does creat a lot of waist. I may start trying to find another home for him. I upgraded my light to a 36in quad T5 about a week and a half ago and thought my plants were doing better. But they are still getting brown spots on them. Initially the brown started at the tips but now more spots throughout. I had been leaving the old light on too long because I didn't think the plants were getting enough light. I ended up getting a lot of algae. Thought maybe the wrong type of light was causing the abundance of algae but since getting the quad T5 the algae is even worse. My water temp is at 78 F and I am leaving the light on 12 hours per day. I just added 3 albino cory, 2 mollies, & 4 ballon mollies. The fish have been in only 24 hours but seem to be doing very well. I need to increase the number of guppies but the store had their female guppies quarantined. My two little female guppies are hiding out a lot since they got new tank mates.

Any help you can give me on the algae problem would be appreciated. Also, is it time to use some plant food? If so what do you recommend. How about CO2? I still would like to add more plants but not until the ones I have start looking better. I have been trying to get rid of the snails as suggested but still have some. Do they arm the plants?

Hi GreenAmy,

Sometimes 12 hours of light is too much when you do not have enough of other things (nutrients, CO2, etc.) the plants need.   A lot of people keep lights on less than 10 hours.  Some of them keep them at 8 hours max.  There is no one rule for everyone, since light strength is also affected by the depth of the water in your aquarium.   If you got an algae problem, you need to decrease the time of light exposure.  Try to use an automatic timer to make things easier for yourself.  

Other things to consider is to add trace mineral for plant food, as well as CO2.    

For details on algae control, we have an article on How to Get Rid of Alage


As for pond snails, it is hard to eradicate them completely.  It takes time.   As long as they no longer overpopulate your aquarium, there is no harm done.  Nope, they will not harm your plants.  All they do is to feed on leftover fish food and a little bit of algae.    I am also curious.  What are some of the methods have you tried anyway? 

I have just been manually removing the snails. I will try backing off on the hours of light. It is on a timer. Picked up some root tablets and API CO2 Booster to use until I can decide on a CO2 system. Thank you for pointing out the artical on how to get rid of algae. I will take a look at it.

Manually removing the pond snails will be effective only if you have also been cutting off their main food source. Reduce the amount of fish food is a must to make sure no leftover is available after each feeding. If you can solve the algae problem, it will just be even less food for the pond snails. Without so much food, they can't reproduce that quickly. Then the manual removing part will actually make an impact on their population. If you introduce a few Assassin Snails as was mentioned in the first article, they will also help to keep the pond snail population in check.

Algae is a little more under control since a good cleaning and 40% water exchange. After reading the articl on how to get rid of algae and talking to a kid at the pet store about CO2 systems, I decided to go ahead and add more plants. I should have checked my KH first. It's 8 and with my pH of 8.2 I am guessing I am killing my plants. My other water peramitors even before a water exchange when I had missed a week of doing an exchange have been perfect. I guess I am a bit afraid of setting up a CO2 system and starting it. What system do you recommend for my 46gal tank. I have read reviews both good and bad on the systems I could find on Amozon. My local pet store doesn't even carry them. I have a family of 6 with 4 kids always on he go with sports almost every night of the week and weekends away with traveling baseball. I would like a reliable system.  I am thinking of a DIY system, found supplies for one that has instructions on Amoxon for $12.70.  
I am really excited about how well my fish are doing. It's a busy little aquarium now. Finally got some more guppies to keep my 2 that were born in my tank company. They are swimming all over the tank again. I do have one Molly that spends a lot of time in the evenings just sitting in one place. It started out on the bottom of the tank behind stuff but now she sits mid tank level. Every now and then another Molly will come by and nudge her and she will swim a bit then go back to that same spot and sit. She is still eating.