Just when I thought I was snail free!!! Fstripped down the tank last month and totally scrubbed everything to just like new, washed the gravel good and even hand-picked each snail out of there, but I guess 1 or 2 got past me. A couple of black snails show up on the glass about 2 weeks ago and so I crushed them, and the next day, there was probably 6 to 10. There are more and more each day, probably close to 50 by now. How in the hell can I get rid of them permanently without buying new gravel, stripping the tank down or killing the fish? Those pesky @#$#$@# have got into my 125 gallon tank also and have really ticked me off!!! I crush the hell outta them every time I see one, but there isn't, but less than 10 that I can see, probably more than that hiding. I have a feeling, they are going to take over the tank like they did the 30 gallon to where I have more black snails than gravel. Any miracle drug that will cure this problem?

was reading an article that other day that said that an overabondunce of snails is usually due to and excess of organic matter, so remove the food source ...ie a good gravle vaccume i mean a good one, and then at noght before you go to bead put a pice of squash or something like that and in the am remove it with all the snails

is your tank still overstocked though, it may not be left over food but just the amount of food i started to see a few snails in my tank, but it has only stayed at a few. the bad thind about chems that kill snails, is that it may kill them yes but if you have such an over abundance like than you have tons of decaying snails that you f your water peramiters that you maby have to do a massive water change and the start you cycle all over again.

just get some loaches for a week or two, they will completley wipe them out, my dad got ticked off two and so i got him 3 loaches and no more snails :) and he actually likes the loaches so they stay, there my clean up crew, ill use them in my 15 gallon if i ever see snails like that, and just give them back to my dad :)

the loaches are a good plan!!!!!
there are some cichlids that would totally destroy the snails.
but they would prob have a go a your fish as well
though dude--it is wierd that there could be such a bad problem-cos like da other guy said-they cant be there if they have nothing to eat (organics)

to the chemicals idea-i am against using em in my tanks (the types that kill things) but if you used a good one to kill your snails and then syphoned the gravel daily---you wouldn't have the rotting snails problem

Thank you all. How about a couple of oscars. Will they get along with a couple of loaches? Would they eat the snails and the shells? I do not plan on keeping those platies in there. They are just there until I get to the pet store, which I haven't done lately. The silver dollars I have in the larger tank will catch a snail off the glass or go face down into the gravel and pick one up, but they swim around the tank chasing each other playing with it for a while and then spitting it out. Do you think a loach would get along with the rest of the tetras, silver dollars, guppies, platies, mollies, etc. in the larger tank? I will probably eventually need something to eat the snails in there before it gets to be a problem.

This is the 2nd time I have stripped that tank down along with the same gravel. The first time, I got T'd, I drained the water and put all the gravel in a bucket for a couple of weeks or so until I felt like cleaning the tank, and you know, there were snails still crawling around in there with no oxygen, water, food, etc. I called myself picking the snails out of the gravel again and rinsing it off real good and putting it back in the clean aquarium, and they came back to life again and started over again.