vacuum and trapdoor snails

[JoaniePA]

Okay, so with all the hoopla about muck building up in the bottom stones, I bought myself a pond vacuum when they went on sale this spring. (I am not physically able to remove the stones so will have to live with them for now.) Haven't used it yet, but I'm just wondering if anyone has had trouble sucking up their snails with it.. I have about a dozen trap doors in the pond and I occasionally net them when I'm removing leaves from the bottom of the pond. They also regularly eat their way into the skimmer basket.

Joanie

 

[taherrmann4]

My pond vac has different types of attachments you can use on the end, one has quite a small opening so it would be hard for a trapdoor snail to get sucked up into the vac, it would keep it sucked to the attachment until you turned the vac off if that makes sense. If a snail or tadpoles as often happened to me do get sucked up through the vac you can always just look for them through the muck and replace them. My wife helps me out with this part as I am sucking the muck she digs through the muck to be sure there is no wildlife and puts it back.

 

[addy1]

My pond vac has different types of attachments you can use on the end, one has quite a small opening so it would be hard for a trapdoor snail to get sucked up into the vac, it would keep it sucked to the attachment until you turned the vac off if that makes sense. If a snail or tadpoles as often happened to me do get sucked up through the vac you can always just look for them through the muck and replace them. My wife helps me out with this part as I am sucking the muck she digs through the muck to be sure there is no wildlife and puts it back.

i just netted our pond, dug through the muck rescuing trapdoors, a bunch of tiny ones and large ones, tads, fry, and some plants. At least the muck does not stink when first pulled out, just like earth/pond

 

[Waterbug]

If a vacuum is worth anything it will indeed such up sails. Whether the snails can be returned to the pond depends on the vacuum.

 

[JoaniePA]

Yes.. it has the smaller attachments. I hate to suck them in or onto the attachment, but guess there's no way around it. I really hope this one has a good draw. The last one I got relied on water pressure from our hose, and that did absolutely nothing at all. This one looks like a small shop vac.. we'll see.

 

[Waterbug]

Smaller attachment means the snail would get sucked tight to the attachment and dragged around the bottom which doesn't sound too good.

 

[taherrmann4]

A trapdoor snail would cause the vac to clog as the attachments are only a little over a 1" diameter. This would be worse for the snail and me. If you are careful you can see where the snails are except in the deepest part also you will know when you have one as the it will slow the muck that is being sucked up.

 

[addy1]

Need to look for the baby trapdoors also, we have a bunch, maybe 1/4 inch.

 

[JoaniePA]

Okay, Addy, so that begs the next question. How many trapdoors is too many? I've noticed quite a few little ones like you mention, and everything in between up to a little larger than a golf ball. I originally put in 10. Is there a "too many" when it comes to trapdoor snails?

 

[koiguy1969]

If your seeing a big incresase in snail population in a short period of time...theyre not trapdoor snails..trap door snails are live bearers, and dont procreate in large numbers. if your seeing lots of snails appear..its pond or river snails...they are egg layers if they get into an area where predidation isnt likely they can take over a ponds enviroment. you can find 'em in your filter by the hundreds sometimes..once youve got'em they are quite a pain to get rid of!

 

[taherrmann4]

If you have any raccoon friends they will help take care of your snail population where they can easily get at them. But as Koiguy said once you get them I am not sure you will ever completely get rid of them though.

 

[addy1]

I put over 100 in my pond, net them out occasionally. you can tell the trap doors cause of the little door they shut to hide and the shape.
If I recall right, the amount recommended was 1 per 20 gallons......... I don't have that many in my pond.
Even the little ones look just like the big guys.

 

[JoaniePA]

They are definitely trap doors. No other snail really looks like 'em, and yes, the itty bitties look just like the big ones. So if it's one per 20 gallons I should be fine. I put in ten, and I think there are probably about 20 or 30 by now (two years). I see a lot of them, but they aren't overrunning anything. I suppose if they get out of hand I can always give 'em to the pond store.

 

[addy1]

I wouldn't worry about them taking over, there is always an abundance of food for them to eat.