ISTA style snail trap

[Vlad]

I have been using strawberry punnet as snail traps but they never seemed to work very well. I then thought about the ISTA traps and decided to do my own. These are not exactly traps but lures and snails being snails would stay on the trap, ready to be collected.

 

I used a 1.5L green tea bottle, cut the top and bottoms off and inserted the bottom, upside down into the top. I ran out of superglue so the two are taped together for now. I then drilled lots of 0.5mm sized holes so that the algae wafers scent can get out to lure the snails. Pebbles were put in to weigh it down and tied some fishing line into the cap to lift/lower it.

 

 

You have to use it like a crab net, that is, check on it regularly. I checked after 1 hour, then 2 hours later and then this morning (each time removing the caught snails). All up, caught 90 or so. They sure do poo a lot as well.

 

Yoghurt container with 90 or so pond snails ranging in size between 1mm to 7mm from the three checks:

 

Plan for version 2 to:
1. Use a slightly smaller bottle as some snails got knocked/scraped off by the frame around the tank when lifting the trap out.
2. Drill more holes to better attract the snails.

 

[ineke]

I have a never ending problem with snails and even though I crush them nightly and give the shrimp a feed I cant get on top of them. I have tried other homemade traps but this looks good so I will try to make one -thanks.

[fishmosy]

Interesting design mate. Well done.

[OzShrimp]

I need to get rid of those tiny ramshorn or whatever they are 

[Vlad]

I need to get rid of those tiny ramshorn or whatever they are

I use to get those 5mm sized ramshorns but the pond snails have literally out competed them to starvation. The pond snails moves at blazing speeds compared to the ramshorns. Hopefully once the pond snails are gone, i will be snail free, fingers and toes crossed.

[Squiggle]

Very cool dude, love DIY stuff!

[KillieOrCory]

This is awesome work!

[Vlad]

Update: Drilled some more holes including on the cap and at the base (all 0.5mm holes). Put the trap in again last night and fished some out 2 hours later and the rest this morning. This time, it was 109 snails.

 

I will try a piece of cucumber strung across two opposite holes to see if it works better or worse. The algae wafers break down too fast. I might also try some New Age sinking pellets. These are more sticky and hopefully stay intact longer.

[Vlad]

Update:

Decided to give the New Era sinking pellets a go last night as it theoretically would make less mess which it did. Anyhow, did 3 hourly checks and one this morning with a combined total of 367 snails. Verdict: The New Era sinking pellets definitely attracts more snails than the Hikari algae wafers. It was a good idea to inver the bottom of the bottle as the cavity it created, together with the holes in the bottom attracted a lot more snails with 20+ snail on the bottom each time I pulled it out.

 

[jayc]

You sure had a lot of snails... that's 566 counted so far.

[OzShrimp]

please design something for ramshorns! lol 

[Vlad]

You just have to be patient with the ramshorns as they are very slow moving.

[perplex]

wow this is interesting, but so simple :P great job!

 

i normally just use finger against glass, bye bye snail, hello fish food!

Edited October 29, 2014 by perplex

[Vlad]

Lol, i crush some of the big ones to feed the fish as well. My lemon and cardinal tetras go crazy for them. Here is hoping i get as many tonight.

[ineke]

I made one and used a sinking algae pellet. I caught about 20 snails but the pellet does pulverise very quickly. Tonight I have put some spinach in the trap to see if that works. Another plus no baby shrimp got into the trap. I will need to make another one and drill the holes next time as I just used a sharp knife which left the holes a bit jaggard.

[Vlad]

I made one and used a sinking algae pellet. I caught about 20 snails but the pellet does pulverise very quickly. Tonight I have put some spinach in the trap to see if that works. Another plus no baby shrimp got into the trap. I will need to make another one and drill the holes next time as I just used a sharp knife which left the holes a bit jaggard.

That was the exact issue I had before. If I made the holes big enough for the pond snails then even adult RCSs get in. You can use a needle to make small holes if you don't have a drill and/or 0.5mm drill bits.

Edited October 29, 2014 by Vlad

[ineke]

got another 20 or so snails overnight. I will make a slightly bigger one today and use the needle to make better holes. 

[yeswaitnosorry]

So, the snails just cling on the outside? And you just manually knock them off each time you remove the trap?

Just checking that I get it right, I have soooo many snails, beginning to think I should take up snail keeping instead of shrimp keeping.

[perplex]

yea thats right :)

[buck]

im deffinatly going to be trying this, i have to feed my yellows 3X as much crack as i should because the damn snails eat it all