[jjlanotte]

Well i posted a thread about a week ago about using Alum in a setup aquarium with plants only, to rid snails. I have purchased alum sulphate in a 25 lb bucket for cheap and dosed the tank at 3tablespoons per gallon. I have a 50 gallon aquarium with a 30 sump. Day one has passed and all snails and bugs are little dead white specs in the tank. i still have snail egg sacs so im going to wait until i no longer see any of them before i attempts water changes and slowly ridding the tank of the alum. My plans after words are to put cherry shrimp, ottos and rams in the tank once my jungle of plants starts to explode in growth. I will first test ghost shrimp prior to putting anything in the tank to make sure its safe. I plan on doing a few 100 % water changes and a constant carbon filtration. I have had the plants in the tank for a month even with the carbon filtration on and they have all rooted well and started to take off in growth. So these are not plants i just recently purchased..Well i thought i would try this to be clear on whether or not it would work..So far so good the plants look great!.........Please let me know what you think or if you have any advice. My hope obviously is that this works and others can emulate this experiment to permanently rid snails and bugs.

 

[Torin]

That all seems a bit too complicated. There are easier ways aren't there?

 

[jjlanotte]

Im sure theyre are. My problem was that i didnt desnail to well before i setup so this is the situation. It is Full day number two with the alum in my tank. Plants still look good nothing to report on them. I see alot of white in the tank though. The white is actually algae which it seems to have destroyed all of it, a surprising result because i was under the impression that alum was not so effective at killing algea but that may have been at lower doses. Remeber that i am at 3 tablespoons per gallon. I also felt an urger to test my waters with some glass shrimp today. And another surprise. They have been in there for about 4 hours and they are scavenging and doing there thing. They do not at all seem to be effected by the alum. i also had a little what appears to be a guppy fry in there and he is also swimming around and seems to not be effected. All weird considering the snails bit the bullet within an hour. The only thing i am waiting to see is what happens with the snail egg sacs. They are still there none have seemed to hatch. I expected that they would and as they traveled out of there sac to then be killed. As of now the sacs seem to be a little more white then normal so it may have already done its job on them. Tomorow around 5 will be full day number 3 and i may or may not start carbon filtration and water changes. Depends on the plant conditon and the egg sacs. let me know if you have any input

 

[jjlanotte]

Ok well i woke up this morning and the shrimp were dead. I am not at all surprised really more so surprised of their intial behavior. So its into day 3 now and the plants all look fine so i might wait it out one more day. Reason being is that the egg sacs are still there but im pretty sure theyre toast.

 

[jaidexl]

You do know that whatever you put in the tank soaks into the silicone, right? So, that tank is likely to be "toast" now as far as ever keeping inverts in it again.

There are more efficient and less obtrusive ways to get rid of snails.

 

[aquabillpers]

Just out of curiosity, why would this horror story rate 5 stars?

Bill

 

[OhioPlantedtankguy]

You do know that whatever you put in the tank soaks into the silicone, right? So, that tank is likely to be "toast" now as far as ever keeping inverts in it again.

There are more efficient and less obtrusive ways to get rid of snails.

I think in the other thread this person stated that the tank was Acrylic, so no seams but the substrate will still leach for ever and a day! I agree this was not a wise idea to get rid of some snails.

 

[jjlanotte]

well your right its an acrylic tank. I dont have the time to tear down and start over so im trying this. The substrate leaching is something we'll see i dont know how much soaking can be done over a few days. Its not a toxin tho. Im at high level now so i would expect it to be no good as far as leaching over time goes we will see.i know my algae is toast, my plants are all good, and thats it. And i dont see why a constant carbon filtration wouldnt work to rid alum even a water conditioner nuetralizes heavy metals so we'll see. Im going to do a water change tonite and add condtioner. All i would say is dont be to quick to judge. Unless you have ever tried it you can not really know. Im doing this because im tired of never getting information from experience just assumptions. So after this if it fails youll be able to tell others NO DONT DO IT LOOK AT THIS POST, or Yea it will work you just have to do it like this guy. Its called experimentation for a reason. If i knew the outcome it would just be the way.

 

[jaidexl]

Don't worry, I've been around the block enough times to say "NO DON'T DO IT".

Try a spinach leaf next time, you can get them cheap in the produce dept of a grocery store. And they don't kill anything.

 

[OhioPlantedtankguy]

Don't worry, I've been around the block enough times to say "NO DON'T DO IT".

Try a spinach leaf next time, you can get them cheap in the produce dept of a grocery store. And they don't kill anything.

x2 Or use an Algae wafer and a net, works every time and no chemicals!