The popularity of keeping the rarer giant clams in saltwater aquariums as pets is starting to increase and the number of aquarium keepers having problems with pyramid snails in their tanks eating their clams is starting to increase too.
Each month we see a number of people having problem with pyramid snails reaching out to ask about the various ways of removing them from their tanks without harming their clams or other snails that the pyramid snails will feed on.
With so many people reaching out and asking for help as well as pyramid snails being so small that they can be problematic to deal we, we decided to publish our own article going over how you are able to remove pyramid snails from your aquarium with ease.
We will be going over three different methods that you are able to use to your advantage when removing pyramid snails from your clams or other snail species to try and ensure that we have at least one method that all of our readers will be able to take advantage of.
Now, some initial tips that tend to work well for all three of the methods that we will go into more detail for below, the majority of pyramid snails are more active with feeding when the lights are off making them easier to remove in low light as they are focused on feeding and not sticking to your clam.
On top of this, when they are in feeding mode, the majority of the pyramid snails in your aquarium will be on your clams or other snails making it easy to pull your clams out and put them in a bucket ready for cleaning allowing you to remove most of the pyramid snails all at once.
The Trusty Tooth Brush!
The easiest method to remove pyramid snails from your aquarium is to wait until they climb onto one of your clam or other snails species to feed and to brush them off with a toothbrush.
They tend to be much easier to remove when feeding so placing your clam covered in pyramid snails into a bucket and then running over it with a toothbrush should easily remove the majority of the pyramid snails.
As we touched on above, this will usually need you to wait until the evening or night time as the pyramid snails in your tank will naturally collect on a clam ready to feed and while feeding their grip is much lower than usual.
This makes it easy to just brush them off your clam with a toothbrush with ease with the bulk of the pyramid snails often coming off with a little focused brushing above their location on your clam.
An old toothbrush will usually be enough to get the job done and there is no need to add any chemicals to the toothbrush during this process if you follow it exactly as explained above.
This helps to protect your clam or snail that the pyramid snails are feeding on as there is no need to use any harsh chemicals to remove the pyramid snails.
A Pocket Knife!
The grip strength of a pyramid snail is surprisingly high when they are not feeding so if you are trying to remove the pyramid snails from your tank when they are not feeding you will probably need a pocket knife or some other firm object to make it as easy as possible to remove the pyramid snails from your aquarium.
This is often essential if the pyramid snails are on your aquarium glass or rocks as they really do grip to the surface they are on making it difficult to remove them.
This is why we recommend that you try to use method one with the toothbrush covered above if possible as it is so much easier.
That said, even with method one, there is a good chance that some pyramid snails will still be in other areas of your aquarium and need to be manually removed with a pocket knife to fully remove all of the pyramid snails from your tank.
As with any task with a knife, safety is your primary concern so don’t put yourself at risk to try and remove a pyramid snail from a rock in a difficult position by sacrificing the angle you scrape with your knife.
There are usually a number of other tools available in most homes that you are able to use to get the job done so it really shouldn’t be an issue to switch to a smaller object if the pyramid snail is in a location that is tough to reach with your knife.
Chemical Treatment Products!
Although there are some chemical treatment products on the market that are able to help you remove pyramid snails from your aquarium, they do have a controversial reputation.
\This is due to the chemicals being strong and posing a risk to your other snails, shrimp and in some cases sensitive fish and corals too.
These chemicals designed for dealing with a pyramid snail breakout are also difficult to find in most areas and are often very expensive.
Although it is rumoured that API have a product coming out soon that should be able to help remove pyramid snails from an aquarium, there is no official word on it from API yet so we are stuck with the products that are hard to find and often out of stock online.
If you do choose to use a chemical treatment to remove the pyramid snails from your aquarium then follow the instructions on the label of the product exactly.
Different products use slightly different methods so you will have to look at their specific instructions as well as research if the product puts any of the other organisms in your aquarium at risk too.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how to remove pyramid snails from your aquarium to an end. We hope that we have been able to help our readers better understand what they should be doing to remove pyramid snails from their tanks and although it does take a surprisingly high amount of time and effort for such a small pest, it is possible. The majority of our readers should be able to easily remove the bulk of the pyramid snails from their tanks using the toothbrush method and then using the pocket knife method to deal with the remaining snails to fully purge their tanks of pyramid snails.
