Will chlorine kill pest snails?

[Carefree_Dude]

I want to get rid of the MTS in one of my tanks... I had an idea... will chlorine kill them? It would be easy to just move my fish to another tank (as well as their filters) and fill the tank with tap water.

These seems like something easy to do, so I'm wondering if it will work.

 

[Dan F]

Yes, chlorine bleach will kill everything in a tank if used in sufficient quantity (I would use about 1/4 cup per 10 gallons).

 

[Carefree_Dude]

will just straight tap water, no bleach do it?

 

[Dan F]

No, the level of chlorine in tap water is far too low to kill much - lots of people do WCs without dechlorinator and their fish live through it...

Copper will kill snails as well, you can use a commercial copper treatment or even fill your HOB with copper pipe, fittings, or wire.

 

[Carefree_Dude]

Will the copper harm my fish? I assume I'll have to remove my crays from the tank to do this, right?

 

[Dan F]

Copper sulfate can be used with fish in the tank, but I would say you are better off putting them in a separate tank if you have the option. Besides copper being somewhat toxic for the fish, the die-off of snails will almost certainly lead to an ammonia spike.

 

[Gill Blue]

I've read too, that the copper will get absorbed into the silicone so you wouldn't be able to put the crays back in.
dunno how true it is, but I'd read up before trying it.

 

[torval]

try this, fish out 1 snail. use some non-iodized salt, aquarium salt should do. make up a cup of strong salt water. drop in the snail. if it dies do the same to the tank. just take everything alive out of the tank and put it elsewhere. add a lot of salt to the tank. i would think this would kill the snails. wait 1 day and do a complete wc.