Snails?

[Kim]

My pond is clear but I have a lot of junk on the bottom, just wondering if I should get some snails? I live in southern part of TN and just wondering also do they stay in the pond year round. Or does anyone have another suggestions for cleaning the bottom of the pond, thanks

 

[sissy]

my koi ate my snails

 

[bettasngoldfish]

A pond vacuum will work best to clean the bottom of the pond. In a pinch a net can also be used.

 

[Loree]

My goldfish ate my snails.....only have one left.

 

[sissy]

most use swimming pool nets cheap and easy

 

[MoonShadows]

I always thought once you put snails in a pond, you wind up with a gazillion of them. (?)

 

[sissy]

Not always .I do have snails but those are not the trapdoor ones I bought .The fish sucked them right out of the shells .

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Trapdoor snails are live bearing as opposed to egg laying so they won't over populate like other types of snails.

 

[sissy]

When I got mine they were having babies

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Snails will make a very small impact on the reduction of organic waster at the bottom of a pond.

 

[MoonShadows]

Snails will make a very small impact on the reduction of organic waster at the bottom of a pond.

Good to know, Meyer. Then, I would use other means to reduce/remove organic waste at the bottom.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Snails and tadpoles do eat a certain amount of organic detritus (as do Koi) but only a small percentage goes to additional body mass. The rest is just turned onto snail or tadpole (of Koi) poop which takes you back to square one. The advantage with tadpoles is that they do eventually leave the pond and take their accumulated body mass (and poop) with them. The problem with most Garden Ponds is that organic waste accumulates faster than it can be converted into body mass, hence the need for skimmers, bottom drains, scoop nets or whatever other means needed to keep this waste at a manageable level.

 

[sissy]

Not so great on tadpoles I went out to find my hoses from my pumps pulsating and out of the water, turned off the pumps and both were filled with dead and living tadpoles which were clogging up the pumps .I thought I got all the eggs out of the pond but guess not >lucky pumps did not burn out .I fished lots of tadpoles off the bottom of the pond also .The pump cages were clogged with them

 

[addy1]

One reason I love my external pump, it ignores tads, etc and does not get plugged up. The leaf basket will catch anything that does wander towards the pump. Not much goes in, I have a 5 gallon bucket around the intake with a ton of small holes drilled in it, that distributes the inflow pressure, keeps from sucking in tads, fry etc.

 

[Lisak1]

With all the frogs we have in and around our pond (I have four co-habitating in my patio pond right now making all kinds of eyes at each other), we've never had tadpoles. Either they lay elsewhere or my fish gobble up the eggs faster than they can hatch.