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What type of food are you using to bait the trap with? I usually bait my snail traps with either algae wafers, catfish wafers or sinking catfish pellets. All things the snail can not resist. But the traps I have are better suited to nabbing MTS, which are the bane of my tanks. For Ramshorn and bladder snails the best method to manually remove them I have used has been chunks of carrot. Some people use lettuce leaves but I find carrot lasts longer and you get more uses out of it before needing a new piece. Put the carrot in the tank (preferably cut length ways) and sit back and wait till the snails swarm all over it. Then you can either carefully just lift it out of the tank and scrape the snails off (being aware one or two snails will most likely let go during the ride and fall back in the tank), or scoop a net under the carrot and pick up the carrot with snails in one fell swoop. Using the net any snails that decide to drop off get caught rather than living another day and laying more eggs. As for eggs I found a length of air hose very handy to scrape the eggs and suck them up and dump into a bucket of water to go out on the garden. I use the same technique with hydra and it works a dream if time consuming. I know people say you will "only have snail issues if you over feed your tank" but I find shrimp tanks with lots of live plants, organic matter like timber and the need to add food to keep the shrimp well feed and enough food for the offspring is a prime habitat for snails. And you cant use any chemicals to get rid of them without also killing your shrimp. Therefore thinking slightly outside of the conventional box for snail control here are some other ideas. I have heard and seen Macrobrachium species eat snails, mind you I have also watched them hunt and eat fish. I usually find them in same place as glass shrimp, so don't know if the Macrobrachium would be considered entirely "shrimp safe". Although I did have a species a friend sent me from Cairns that lived happily with fish and cherry shrimp but would hunt snails. She had very long spindly front nippers and was a fascinating shrimp to watch since she often seemed to watch you in return. Once near complete removal of the pest snails is underway perhaps add a desired snail that will fill the niche and remove some of the excess food source that the pest snails are partying on. In my tanks I have Nerites (great snails and can not successfully breed in fresh water, although they will lay eggs) these will mainly only eat algae but would also eat biofilm. I also have notopala species these can breed in fresh water but they have live birth young (cute little tackers too), and are mainly going to be eating decaying organic matter like old leaves, while leaving healthy plants alone. Then I also have a nice (sorry don't know its name) black shelled snail that gets really long and spends the vast majority of its time in the substrate. This black shelled snail that looks similar to MTS but smoother shell and much larger also does not seem to breed in fresh water fish tanks. I know you said no fish to eat the snails but I have found khuli loaches and Dwarf Chain loaches to be shrimp safe. and the tanks that house these guys are so snail free I add snails from other tanks as a treat for the loaches. I suspect the Khuli loaches might mainly eat tiny baby snails or the eggs, while I have watched the Dwarf Chain loaches tackle full grown Ramshorn snails and even manage the odd MTS. Even when a highly desired food has been fed I have watched both khuli loaches and Dwarf Chain loaches scramble all over the food but totally ignore the cherry shrimp that have also beelined for the treat. Hope some of these suggestions help you out.

We have a rain water tank but I had always thought the water wouldn't be suitable. I am always used it for water changes on the marine tanks, the turtle tank & the tropical fish tanks, but for some reason I got it into my head that it wouldn't be ok for the shrimp. RO would be best I aggree. If i could find one like you mentioned at around $100 that my budget could handle. I have one fairly new tank, started 3months ago, with active shrimp soil that I intend to house my mischlings in, but have yet to put any shrimp in it as I was waiting for levels to stabilise. It's only been the last few weeks that the ammonia has dropped away, took ages. I have a couple of endler guppies in it now, eating micro pests. I used distilled water demineralized with salty shrimp GH to set it up. The TDS in that is higher now than it's ever been too. I was testing levels every few weeks at the start & tds was always around 100 but it's up to 338 when i tested it today 'sigh'. It's like I have this sneaky leprechaun bouncing around at night sprinkling stuff in the tanks. I will do that test with all three substrates & the filter media & see if the levels change. I'll do it in the rain water, it's TDS is 22, GH1, KH0, PH 6.6 Sent from my Elephone P8000 using Shrimp Keepers Forum mobile app

Take some of the filter media out and place into a plastic cup of water (new water you would use to fill the tanks). Test the water before adding the media. Then test it again every few days to see if the parameters change. Then you will know. In a different plastic cup add some of the "inert" substrate. Gravels are not always inert, as it can be made up of limestones. Try the test on this too.