02/12/2024
ALL ABOUT PEST SNAILS!
Here in Perth, the aquarium industry plant farms often grow their plants in large basins or ponds inside greenhouses. While businesses do what they can to reduce the amount of pests that enter the water body, these resilient critters are often able to reproduce faster then what's manageable to sanitise. These basins are teeming with life, including snails, which lay their small, sticky clear orb eggs on the leaves and stems of plants.
Common Critters:
Perth is no exception to being plagued by the same common aquarium pests found all across the world. The most common you’ll find appearing is:
Bladder Snails (Physella acuta)
Ramshorn Snail (Planorbidae)
Malaysian Trumpet Snails (Melanoides tuberculate)
Pond snail (Lymnaeidae)
Wandering snail (Radix peregra)
Why do they take over?
These pest snails are small, resilient and great at reproducing. They also often favour laying their eggs on the underside of broad leafed healthy plants, out of sight from any would-be predators. These eggs can be laid in clutches of up to a dozen eggs, maturing in only 35 days!
Many species are also Hermaphrodites, which means they have both male and female s*x organs or other s*xual characteristics, and as such are able to reproduce with 2 snails regardless of their gender! Some are As*xual, and are able to reproduce without a reproductive partner, essentially cloning itself!
Unless you sanitise/quarantine your plants, there will always be a risk of a snail hatching once the plant is added to your tank, or even a whole snail catching a ride into a new home!
Pictured: dwarf flat Ramshorn Snail (Planorbis Planorbis)
