Snail woes

[Pinkasylum]

So after four years, it was bound to happen right? I got a phone call from Brinks while I was at work today telling me that my water sensor was going off (it's behind my tank and connected to my alarm), so I rushed home with sad thoughts of dead fish, coral, and rock littered across my living room.

When I finally made it home (in record time, I might add), my carpet was wet and all the power off, but the tank was thankfully intact. After some puzzlement, I discovered that two pesky snails had found their way into my u-tube, which evidently was enough to slow down my overflow and allow the return to pump more water into the tank than the overflow could handle.... which of course caused the water level in my sump to get low enough to switch on my auto top off, which emptied another five gallons into the sump, which was pumped up into my already overflowing tank and... you get the idea.

I imagine it happened much like that game mousetrap.

So here's the question of the hour.... any brilliant ideas on how to prevent snails from crawling up into a u-tube?

 

[Jaguar]

On a RR tank, or an overflow box? Oh a RR tank you just put a screen over it they sell some http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4082&N=2004+113786 for threaded ones or slip ones http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4080&N=2004+113786

Other then that some people use gutter screen to make a little snail trap in the overflow boxes. HTH[/url]

 

[grim-bob]

too keep most snails of enough size to cause this problem out of the overflow you can top it with egg crate. It can be cut to fit snugly and will keep the snail from getting down into it.

 

[Jaguar]

Oh, okay or that, but it usually start growing algae. However it does prevent fish from jumping into it as well.

 

[kwl1763]

Congrats your a real reefer now! Seriously almiost everyone that been in this a while had it happen at one point so don't feel to bad.

Eggcrate works great. You don't need a small filter. If a cerith or something gets in it's ok you just want to keep the astreas and turbos out.

It's also a good idea to have more then one drain line if at possible that is by itself capable of draining what it needs. That way you are adding redundancy.