Buy Goldfish Get Two Snails Free?! What To Do With My Unexpected New Guests? Snails. -.-

[Guest lionhead8]

Well, they're not really "guests" cuz I'm gonna keep them?

So, here's what happened. I got a new goldfish today from my local pet store. Everything was fine until I went home and was about to put the bag into the tank (the usual new goldfish procedures and stuff..) when I noticed there were two black dots on the bag. Looking closer, I found they were snails. What? Haha. Yeah, paid for a goldfish, got the goldfish, and two extra tiny snails. They're really tiny, about the size of a grape seed. -.- What should I do with them? (No, I don't plan to bring them back into the pet store. I don't think they care about these creatures who are about the size of a seed. They're super unprofessional too.) I'm definitely not doing to put the snails into my 30 gallon fish tank. No way. Plus, the filter opening, about 10000000 times their size, would kill them. Currently, they're in a small container, volume of 500 mL with no filters or anything and no air pumps. What do snails need? What food? How to take care of them? What else should I know? Thanks. LOL. Getting these snails was totally unexpected.

[nick11380]

It is likely that these snails are either pond snails or rams horn snail. If that's what they are they are considered pest snails and have no real value.

I got some pond snails and rams horn snails with some plants I bought a litte over a year ago. I planted the plants in a 1 gallon aquarium a year ago. I haven't feed the plants or the snails at all. I've even let the aquarium dry out to the point where it was still damp but you couldn't see any water. These plants don't need to be covered with water so they grow nicely. When I fill the tank up with water the snails start crawling around again.

They'll eat fish food. If you put a live plant in with with them you won't need to feed them.

[Tinkokeshi]

pest snails can very quickly become a nuisance. most aquariasts have the worst time getting rid of them once they are introduced to a tank.

I know I'm having that problem in my tropical tank! A horrible addition with plants that were QTed too!

[Bubbleboy]

I got snails with one of my plants and they're a pain! It took a while to get rid of them...if I were you I'd just give them back to the store or find some other way of getting rid of them. They'll kill plants and I'm pretty sure they might even carry diseases fish can get.

[acenorm]

As everyone else has said, they are probably pond snails. You definitely don't want them. The best thing to do is to just destroy them. I had gotten one on a plant I had gotten, and I ended up with tons of them in my 3 gallon. I had to break down the tank and boil everything to make sure I got rid of all the remaining eggs and any babies that I didn't find already.

Best Regards,

Norm

[nick11380]

The pond snails and rams horn snails never hurt my plants as far as I could tell. If you like them, go ahead and keep them. You can keep them in a small aquarium or large vase or large jar (a gallon is plenty big). They don't need filters or air. They are kind of interesting.

Keep them in a container by themselves. They are pests so don't put them in your fish tank.

[NightAngel]

I used to have a massive infestation of pond snails in my 150g. Pobobably in the thousands at one point. That was until I set Chewy the oranda free in there. Took care of the problem immidiatly. Maybe 2-3 weeks. Then re-introduced him two weeks later as soon as the hatchlings made their apppearance. Goldfish love to eat pond snails. They just suck them up, crunch-crunch-crunch, (peices of shell goes flying) and gulp-tasty-all-gone! Good stuff!