help! i came downstairs this morning and there were loads of tiny little snails in my fishtank!?

You need to get them ALL out as they reproduce rather quickly, they are harmless but can take over a tank.

They could have come from a plant you brought maybe?

Like I said they are harmless and are kinda cool but can obscure the tank. Simply taker them all to a neigbours pond or a local river, they will be fine.

Good Luck!

They hitched a ride on something that you put in your tank recently. Snails won't hurt the fish, there are even some fish that like to eat snails. There are 3 options to removing the snails.

1) Use chemicals...not a good idea since the death of many snails can cause bad problems with the water quality. And can kill any other invertebrates you may have in the tank, e.g. shrimp.

2) Hand pick them out on a daily basis. Put a cucumber on a small plate and set in tank. Every morning you will be able to remove the plate with a lot of snails on it. Or hand crush and let the fish eat the soft body.

3) Buy an Assassin Snail (Anentome helena). They run about $8, need two to reproduce, reproduce slowly. Biggest problem is finding a store that carries them.

If you remove the snails by hand, DO NOT put in a pond/lake/any body of water. That is a bad habit to get into.

They most certainly hitched a ride on something else into your tank. They are harmless to your fish, in fact a lot of fish enjoy eating them. I agree that picking them out is the best way to do it I figured I would also suggest another alternative but ONLY if your tank can handle it. Buying a fish that is a know snail eater like a yoyo loach is a possibility (never buy a clown loach for this as they get huge!) Yoyo loaches are community fish that are amazing additions to most planted tanks as they will quickly devour your snail collection, but be sure that your tank has the space and right water parameters before investing in another fish. Read up more on them. Knowlege is power.

Did you buy live plants, they may have been on them, or the eggs were in the water when you bought fish and transffered the fish + shop water into your tank.

What kind of fish have you got? Fish like clown loaches love to eat snails.

To get them out you will have to use a net to get them out.

They won't hurt your fish, but snails do reproduce a lot. So you might like to pick them out, to control the population, or leave them in for your fish to eat.

the small snails r carried from one tank to another when they r eggs so if u got a new fish lately u probably brought them over from the pet shop u got the fish from and they only just hatched out .

just get a puffer ;P lol or some loaches, dont put poison or anything in the tank and snails are good for your tank. they clean your tank of algea instead of you doing it yourself. i had loads in my tank then i put a loach in the tank now i have no snails. just little shells in the tank

holy crap They will mate and mate and mate They will never come out of your tank unless you stick in Poison and drain it

also take out you fish and plants and stick in hot almost boiling water that will kill them

good luck

do a full stripdown and check all your plants and ornaments and keep washing them