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Aquaponic snailsI

I have a problem with snails in my grow beds. They are eating the roots off my plants and severely slowing growth. I have tried copper sulphate in the water but with limited effect. I am afraid to add too much as I don't know how much will be harmful to the fish and filter bacteria. Can anyone help.

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Permalink Reply by Francois Zinserling on July 19, 2011 at 7:06am

I read of someone that had great success with a few Oscars in his troughs.It also took care of the Tilapia fry that escaped into the grow-beds. I imagine a catfish or 2 would do the same trick.

Of course this only makes sense if you have deep-flow troughs, not media-filled beds.

Permalink Reply by rossouweksteen on July 19, 2011 at 7:39am

The problem with snails(Especially Malaysian trumpet snail (Melanoides tuberculatus)) is ,when they are in your growth beds you will never get rid of them. These guys love digging into substrate and only come out at night to feed. Oscar's/Malawi's/Some catfishes will assist in your ponds but that is how far it will go. A way that i have dealt with them, is by physically trapping them and removing them at night and reducing the PH and calcium levels in my aquaria's. In this way you gradually weaker there shell's until they brake and cannot recover thus killing the reproductive cycle. No big snails, no eggs.

The best way to get rid of them, is to never have them in your system at all though.

Permalink Reply by Kobus Jooste on July 19, 2011 at 8:00am

Interesting problem. I have not read on this topic before and to be sure, I grabbed the only book on aquaponics that I own and there is nothing in there either. If you are referring to grow beds I presume you are referring to media beds, and that the snails are not aquatic. I will try to do a search for this one and see what I can find. Do you have any pictures of the culprit?

Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on July 19, 2011 at 9:30am

At times I have had snail problems... my grow beds were filled with media.
When I had a problem with snails in the grow beds I use to flood my grow bed to the brim and leave the water at this level for a few minutes.
The snails in my system use to come up or drown..I found the snails to live just below the stones
And I use to pick them up flouting dead or just about and fed them to my fish.

By flooding my grow beds on a regular basis I overcame the problem.

Permalink Reply by Drew Allport on July 21, 2011 at 12:03am

The snails are aquatic . I am doing raft aquaponics and the snails live in the water. An aquaculturist suggested copper sulphate some months ago but wasn't sure of quantities. I tried with adding small amounts every day. The fish seemed to virtually stop eating and it seemed to be eradicating the snails. I drained half the water and topped up with fresh water. Fish soon started eating normally. After a couple of weeks snails started appearing again. I now seem to have as many snails as before. The fish happily eat the snails that I remove by hand and squash. However obviously there are no fish in grow beds as they would be even more destructive on the roots than the snails.

Kobus Jooste said:

Interesting problem. I have not read on this topic before and to be sure, I grabbed the only book on aquaponics that I own and there is nothing in there either. If you are referring to grow beds I presume you are referring to media beds, and that the snails are not aquatic. I will try to do a search for this one and see what I can find. Do you have any pictures of the culprit?

Permalink Reply by Rebecca B on July 21, 2011 at 2:11am

Are you sure the snails are eating the plant roots? The snails in my aquarium eat algae from the glass and clean up the dead leaves (detrivore). A search for copper sulphate found: Copper sulfate is very toxic to fish. Its toxicity to fish varies with the species and the physical and chemical characteristics of the water (12). Even at recommended rates of application, this material may be poisonous to trout and other fish, especially in soft or acid waters. Its toxicity to fish generally decreases as water hardness increases. Fish eggs are more resistant than young fish fry to the toxic effects of copper sulfate (3). Very small amounts of this material can have damaging effects on fish.

Permalink Reply by ndaba.fani on August 18, 2011 at 6:04pm

try getting a styrofoam cup fill it halfway with beer or a yeast culture. your going for the smell more than anything. bury it up to the lip in your media. the smell will attract the snails and they will drop in the beer or solution and will drown through osmosis. do this every evening and empty every morning for about a week and this will take care of them depending on the size of the infestation.

Permalink Reply by rossouweksteen on September 7, 2011 at 1:58am

Hi all,

I came across this intresting articale on a fish keeping magazine website about snails. Some good info on the little critters.

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4274

Permalink Reply by Gabriel on October 11, 2011 at 2:34am

Hi,

I have found that the 'best' natural enemy to a snail, even the slug type, is the parktown prawn. This hideous looking cricket devours snails at a fast rate. http://www.insecta.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=arti...

When your snail problem is taken care of, you can place baiting trays with little bit of moist sluggem out to then get rid of the crickets.

Personally I hate them, they look like something from a horror movie. But they work.