The Puffer Forum

So, now I have a budding infestation of baby MTS in my puffer tank. I've done a search and found lots of posts here about how bad they are, but not much on how to eliminate them.

The problem is this: tank is heavily planted and also full of ramshorns. Any fix I can think of for the MTS will likely decimate the ramshorns, right? ie loaches or assassin snails.

I pulled out a couple tufts of hair algae in which the smallest ones were congregating, but that's not near enough. I can see many more and I know it'll just get worse

you could put some lettuce down. and then the next day pull it out and toss the rams back in.

+1 It takes time but lettuce, cucumber or zucchini to bait them and scoop them out.. then hand separate them

Ok, I have plenty of both. Thanks

Good luck! I've just realised that I am going to have a problem with them in my shrimp tank. There's oodles of babies coming out of the substrate and sticking onto the glass. Shame nothing in there will eat them. Biscuit is in there, but he won't eat snails, of any sort.

Only way I know of to get them to come out or die is to turn off all the filtration/water circulation and use a towel on top of the tank to reduce airflow to next to nothing. The snails then must leave the substrate for the top of the tank, or smother in the gravel.

I never knew I had them in one of my tanks until I tore it down (to sell it) and left about half the water in it. Before long, there were loads of them appearing from nowhere. Stupidly I removed some of them to try and "save them" and put them in some of my other tanks thinking they would help with the planaria problem I had. I am kicking myself now for "saving" them.

Nick wrote:...use a towel on top of the tank to reduce airflow to next to nothing...

That's a good idea, and I bet some Saran wrap or a trash bag would work even better. You could lower the water and also let it cling to the sides.

thats good aslong as you dont have any fish in the tank.

You could toss a loach in there.

Pufferpunk wrote:You could toss a loach in there.

I did and they are GONE!! Easy and biological, too. Gotta love it.