Usually snails kept in the aquarium are quite useful.
They clean the aquarium water regularly, they will lower the levels of nitrite in the water and they are useful for the growth of aquarium plants.
Generally snails are peace-loving creatures and they will live without disturbing others.
However, when their reproduction rate goes beyond limits, they will be compete with others to share for the food and their huge number can distract and disturb the fish community in the aquarium.
In that case you need an immediate solution to get rid of those snails.
There are several methods suggested by experts 1.
You can set up another small tank near the main tank.
You can pick up the snails manually and drop them in this tank.
They will survive happily there.
Snails don't need customized food.
Even the vegetables left over in your house can be offered to them and they are happy to eat that stuff.
You can also offer them the food which is wasted by the fish and lying at the bottom of the aquarium.
All the waste of plants can also be offered to them and they will be happy to eat that.
You can keep that tank as a standby and whenever you will require snails in the main tank you can shift them there.
If you do not require any snails for the main tank, then you can safely dispose of all of them.
2.
You can lure the snails out of the aquarium.
This can be done easily with the help of a small glass.
Just put some interesting food in the glass like algae wafer and keep the glass in the middle of the aquarium.
It will take some time for the snails to smell the food inside the glass.
However, most of them will try to enter into the glass for the food.
If you keep the glass in the aquarium at night, next morning you can find a lot of snails in that glass.
Just take out that class and dispose of the snails.
3.
There is another way of getting rid of these snails.
Some of your pet fish species love to eat snails.
Some cichlids, loaches and puffer fish are snail eaters.
Puffer fish in particular is very useful for lowering the population of snails.
Check if you have any of these varieties of fish in your aquarium.
Controlling snails then becomes very easy.
4.
You can use snails to fight with other snails! There is a particular breed which is called Assassin Snail.
This type of snails will eat others as their food.
So if you introduce a few of them, they can easily control the population of snails in a short time.
5.
Chemicals are available in the market for eliminating snails.
Usually copper solutions can be of help.
However, there are two limitations.
First, the snails will get used to these chemicals soon.
Secondly, such use of chemicals may contaminate the aquarium water and put at risk the entire fish population.
So it is advisable to avoid chemicals.
In general, snails are useful for the aquarium.
It is up to you to make use of them, as a source of food for fish or as the aquarium cleaner without any charge!