I had a severe Malaysian Trumpet Snail problem and tried baiting, picking up manually , introduced 30 assassin snails.
none of it worked.
I was afraid to apply " no planaria " that would kill all and get a ammonia spike and cause cycle to crash. Then I had an idea of removing entire sand . Still there is very high chance of crashing the cycle since I'm removing substantial amount of beneficial bacteria with substrate.
I had a theory : with the huge amount of MTS there is definitely a significant bio load with it. by removing all MTS at once I'm also removing the bio load with it . So removed bio load will be somewhat equal to needed beneficial bacteria with substrate. the theory worked and I'm on 2ND week running without substrate.
Posted by reddit_browsers
17 Comments
Biofilter lives where flow is. Water isn’t being forced through your substrate, therefore it is not contributing meaningfully to your biofilter.
Unfortunately no planaria has precisely zero impact on MTS 😂 I’ve dosed many tanks with MTS and they give zero shits… They’re indestructible
That’s kind of a shame. Plenty of people would love some MTS – you could have made money over on aquaswap!
Holy MTS hoarde!
I’m just amazed you didn’t get a spike from stirring up so much of the substrate, but I guess that just goes to show that the MTS does actually help aerate the substrate quite a bit.
I had a nice crash when I went to a bare bottom tank.
I’ve also moved HOBs from established tanks and had them do absolutely nothing.
I’ve also accidentally left filters off for a week and had no ammonia or nitrite spike.
If only someone would make luminescent bacteria so we could see where it actually lived…
Is that the same stocking? They are gorgeous
Ive never understood what the problem with snails is. I always introduce a hoard into my tanks. Shit right now my tank has mts, bladder, and ramshorns in it. I think theyre awesome
In my opinion, which is usually controversial. The active bacteria lives in the filter mostly. So the water in the tank does not matter at all. That’s why it is easy to set up a new tank with an existing filter.
all this work for a problem that could’ve been solved with a single loach
i see an intake for an external canister filter and an airlift sponge.
A healthy cycled tank has far more beneficial bacteria than it needs. More grows in the filter with water flow than in the substrate with stagnant pockets of water.
Removing some of the bacteria is a risk, because you never really know how large your bacterial population is. but 99% of the time, it isn’t a problem. I have many times removed a filter from a tank to start another tank and never had a cycle crash. I always monitor closely because I still know it is a risk.
Also, your canister filter is full of trumpet snails, just so you don’t make the mistake of thinking you have won.
Flow is what matters. Its not the filter, its just flow over a surface. See here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aquariums/s/MfaJxNVcNi
Picture 1: I don’t see any trumpet snails…
Picture 2: Fugg
Interesting theory! Do you think most of your beneficial bacteria were in the filter and hardscape rather than the substrate?
I hate Malaysian trumpet snails.
Roll the dice and won. Go to Vegas 😉
Actually it’s the same as removing all the fishes, hardscape and plants except the substrate and put everything in a bucket or spare aquarium. That’s what I did when my 55G leaked. Everything survived.
I had an MTS invasion that never went away, regardless how many traps/predators I had. They were flourishing in my canister filter as well. I had to treat my discus for parasites with Flubendazole, and that finished all the snails off. Not really recommended, but it got rid of the snails.