Apple Snails In Filter Sponge.

I noticed some baby apple snails inside the filter casing a few days go, I was going to leave them until I did tank maintenance this weekend but I accidentally broke the glass thermometer in the QT so decided to clear them out and give the filter a clean in the water I siphoned out.

There were about 10 baby apple snails on the outside of the sponge however to my horror I've discovered that when you move the filter sponge you can see loads of snails actually inside it.

How the heck do I get them out?  If I cant get them out they're either going to sit in there and get bigger feeding on the residue or they're going to die and lie in there and rot.

I was going to transfer the filter to tick over in another tank once the cardinals and sparkling gouramis had finished their time in quarantine but I can't if it's full of snails 

Hello Fiona,

I had a similar problem with "hitchhikers" in the filter of my 125L. This was some time after the assassins had cleared the tank. However, the assassins bred, and although it took a while for the youngsters to appear out of the gravel, some of them eventually made their way into the filter to solve the problem. I was taking small assassins out of the top white filter sponge at each water change for weeks! I assume that having feasted and grown, they couldn't get out!

Hope this helps,

                                            Skittler