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You will often see Loaches and pufferfish eating nerite snail eggs from the inside of a fish tank. Keep in mind that you should first make sure that the fish tank has enough space to host these additional fish before adding them into this enclosed ecosystem.
You should also remember that most of the time, nerite snail eggs are not fertilized.
You won’t have to worry about fertilized eggs from snails inside the fish tank because snails will rarely leave them there. This means that the eggs will just lay around inside the tank until you find a solution to remove them.
You might also like my articles on whether snails poop, whether snails bite and what frogs like to eat.
You will spot nerite eggs when you’ll notice these signs:
- Bunched white balls near the bottom of a tank
- White-colored balls
- The balls are constantly protected by nerite snails
Each situation is different when it comes to nerite snails, their eggs in your tank, and your best approach to removing them. The best thing to do if you want to remove the nerite snail eggs is to simply find some type of fish that finds them edible.
Releasing a breed of fish that is willing to eat these eggs will take all of the pressure from you, doing all of the heavy lifting in clearing the tank.
So let’s find out what creatures actually eat nerite snail eggs and how you can clear them yourself.
Tips To Remove Nerite Snail Eggs from the Fish Tank
1. Scoop Out the Eggs Immediately
An almost instant solution to the problem of too many nerite snail eggs in the tank would be to simply remove them with a scoop.
If you don’t feel like you have enough time to wait for a fish to eat them or to keep snails hungry for just enough time to stop them from laying eggs, a much faster solution would be to remove the eggs yourself.
This will be a short-term solution because the snails will continue to lay eggs even after you remove the old ones.
2. Use Egg-Eating Fish
The easiest long-term solution that won’t require you to do anything else will be to add a few fish of the right type to the aquarium.
Egg-eating fish are the easiest solution because they will be a natural way of removing the eggs, without artificial intrusion in the enclosed habitat by a human or a man-made device. All you will be left to do will be to just sit back, relax, and watch the fish eating all of the eggs one by one.
What are the best fish to add to a tank to get rid of nerite snail eggs?
Species like the ones below find these eggs really tasty:
- Mollies
- Loaches
- Pufferfish
Some people also like to add beta fish as a solution to nerite snail eggs, but most of the time, these won’t be as interested in the eggs as the species I have laid above.
Don’t just throw a bunch of fish inside in hopes of a fast answer to your problem. Instead, take your time and add the fish one by one, while also making sure that the whole fish tank ecosystem is not affected by your changes.
Regardless of the species you go for, either a molly or a pufferfish or even something else, you want to make this addition as smooth as possible. This is to make sure that the ecosystem doesn’t break and the creatures inside the tank don’t just start to eat each other.
3. Cut Their Food Source
Usually, if the problem isn’t one that needs immediate fixing and you can take your time, it is a good idea to cut the food source of the snails.
It is something easy to understand but most people don’t think about this at all. If you notice aggressive breeding within the snail community, then you should try to reduce their food source. This would cause them to get in a survival mode, stopping them from aggressively breeding and overpopulating the tank.
It’s one of the easiest ways of making sure that the snails won’t have conditions that would push them to breed.
Cutting a snail’s food source will make it stop breeding, leading to a decrease in the production of unfertilized eggs, but it isn’t always an easy task, especially if you have a lot of algae in the tank.
A lot of inexperienced tank owners will add mini algae into the fish tank for aesthetic reasons, without knowing that this is basically the perfect food for nerite snails.
This food is high in nutrients and will be very nutritious for them, but it will also cause them to produce more eggs. It’s one of the main food sources that you will want to remove if you are serious about stopping nerite snails from breeding and removing the excess eggs from the tank..
4. Remove Some of the Nerite Snails
The number of Nerite snails from inside your tank will also dictate the number of excess eggs that would be found on its bottom.
A bigger number of Nerite snails will mean a bigger number of Nerite eggs. This is one of the main issues why a smaller-sized tank would see an unexpected increase in eggs.
The best thing you can do is simply remove the excess nerite snails as soon as possible.
Any Nerite snail left in the fish tank will continue to lay eggs as normal behavior.
Removing just enough snails will restore the balance and harmony of your tank.
Final Words
How can you remove nerite snail eggs from the tank? What species of fish eat nerite snail eggs?
There are some easy solutions to removing nerite snail eggs from your tank, and the fastest one is to simply use a scoop to take out the eggs yourself. A more natural approach would be to add either pufferfish or mollies to the tank, while a longer-0term solution would be to either remove some of the snails or cut their food source to stop them from breeding.
