Nature's Water Cleaners
Scavengers For Pools And Aquariums
Scavengers are the most natural and healthy way of keeping your aquarium clean and tidy. They keep the water sweet by eating excess algae as well as by consuming fish offal and food scraps.
Picking the right scavenger is important. It will save you a lot of time and effort cleaning out your pool or aquarium on a regular basis.
Snails
Snails are the main form of scavenger used in pools or aquariums. Snails will do most of the scavenging work and are an essential part of any functioning pool. Snails are also a good indicator of water quality, with acidic water damaging or killing snails before it kills your fish.
If snails cling to the top of a pool or aquarium for a day, then the water is probably foul and needs to be replaced. It may also indicate too much oxygen, so check the water for smell and cloudiness before replacing, as too much oxygen is not harmful to fish.
Snails are extremely inexpensive so if any die they are easy to replace. However, some people prefer to breed their own. If you want to breed your own snails, set aside an aquarium or bowl that has a good growth of algae on it. Snails lay eggs on plants, so keep some plants in there for the snails to place their eggs. Make sure that there are no fish in the container or the eggs will be eaten. The eggs will take about three weeks to hatch, at which time you should place some pulverized fish food in the container and remove the adult snails so that they do not eat the food. After a week or two the snails will be able to move around on their own and you can start feeding them fruit and vegetable scraps instead.
Some of the most useful, scavenging snail species to purchase are:
African Paper Shell Snail. This snail is medium-sized and has a flattened shape, with pretty brown marking on a horn-colored background. It is one of the better snails around for scavenging and will not attack your aquatic plants. However, this species is quite short-lived and will often need replacing.
Australian Red Snail. This is one of the smaller species, but it is quite hardy and reproduces easily. It has a conch-shaped shell and is bright orange-red.
Japanese Snail. Also known as the Great Japanese Snail or Trapdoor Snail, it is one of the largest and most effective scavengers. It often grows to the size of a golf ball and has a long life. The offspring are born alive, and pea-sized, making them too big for fish to eat.
Pond Snail. The Pond Snail is a small dark snail that can be easily identified by the reverse spiral of its shell. It breeds prolifically and they have hard shell to protect the young and small snails from fish. They are a busy scavenger that is great for moving between small plants to get the algae trapped.
Red Ramshorn. Also known as the Coral Snail or Copenhagen Red, this snail is an excellent scavenger with a large, flattened, orange-red shell shaped like a ram's horn. It is great for aquariums and is perhaps the prettiest of all the scavenging snails.