How to kill collonistas

[Gig 'em]

So despite despite my decon and QT attempts, I had pyramid snails introduced into my tank about half a year ago. They wiped out my clams and all my large snails and I was hoping if I left the tank the way it was without adding any more food sources, they would eventually starve out. To my horror though, they have turned to collonista snails to stay alive. I'll see pyramid snails 3/4 the size of collonistas hanging onto them and sucking them dry. Collonistas are so numerous and reproduce so quickly that they appear to be a never ending food source for the little vampires [emoji35]. I have a six line wrasse, but that hasn't done much, if anything to reduce their population. I need a way to completely eliminate the collonistas and pyramids so I can finally be free of them. Does anyone have experience with ridding their tanks of them without baking all their rock and sand? Ive heard of using high levels of magnesium, but haven't been able to find much solid info and results from this. Here's a picture of a snail I threw in the sump that was soon covered by 16+ pyramids.

 

[pagojoe]

That's pretty amazing. I've never heard of them going after Collonistas before. If they are actually making a living off your Collonistas, you may not have a lot of choices. It would be impossible to remove all the Collonistas from your tank, so...you might just wait and see how it works out. The pyramidellids may not be able to thrive long-term without a larger host.

Cheers,



Don

 

[Betta132]

Maybe just wait for awhile and see if the pyramids manage to eliminate the collonistas.
Or, what about an arrow crab? They eat snails, I believe, but they threaten small fish and are overall bad tankmates.

 

[Gig 'em]

Unfortunately the collonistas don't seem to be declining in population. I believe the pyramids were first introduced to my tank a little less than 6 months ago and the collonista population hasn't changed at all. They may not be killed by the pyramid snails, but temporarily used as a food source. I'm afraid just waiting for the population of pyramid snails to completely wipe out the collonistas will never happen.

 

[SteveZZR]

Harlequin Tusks or a Puffer of some kind to eat the snails?

 

[Gig 'em]

I am going to try the chemical route and dose the tank with Tech-M over the course of the week to raise Mg levels. I've read that the higher Mg levels have made snails lethargic and hopefully if I can keep the levels elevated for long enough, perhaps they will starve out. I'll post my results.

 

[olemiss reb]

They'll move onto limpets after the collonistas. I don't think you can starve them out...

 

[Sk8r]

If they haven't gotten to your sump, you might rescue a decent colony of good snails and hold them safe down there until the little vampires have starved out.

 

[Gig 'em]

If they haven't gotten to your sump, you might rescue a decent colony of good snails and hold them safe down there until the little vampires have starved out.

I've seen them in the sump. They're pretty much everywhere. If elevated Mg doesn't kill them off after a month, I'll be nuking the tank and starting over:sad1:

 

[Gig 'em]

Just to update, I've raised the Mg levels in my tank about 120 ppm a day with Tech M and my theoretical concentration is now around 2,000 ppm.

I noticed yesterday when I reached this theoretical concentration that my tank had a lot of dead brittle stars all over and my sand sifting star was looking sickly. I removed the sand sifting star to another tank so it wouldn't be poisoned by the elevated Mg levels.

The collonistas are still alive. They aren't nearly as active and I see some hanging onto the glass and rock, so the Mg levels haven't knocked them out. At least I see fewer of them now and hopefully if I raise the Mg levels to ~2,200 and keep it elevated, they will be knocked out long enough to starve out. I will update on my results in a few weeks.