It happened to me

[NeptunesMom]

I did not quarantine my plants and I have snails. They are extremely small and brown. Any ideas of what they might be? I will not kill them, but what I have done is got a 2.5 gallon tank and tried to catch the ones I found and move them. I know there must be more, so I'm going to try to get them as I see them and move them to the 2.5 gallon tank. I have removed the plants that they hitchhiked in on (although they were in my tank for several months already). I am planning on removing the other plants too, and I hope that makes it easier for me to see them. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to find them? Where might I look for them in the tank? If anyone has a guess on what they are, at what size/age are they fully mature? Does anyone have a suggestion on what I could do with them (do people want these types of snail?)

[aokashi]

Pond snails -
Ramshorns
Malaysian trumpet snails.
are all common hitch hikers
Without a photo it's hard to tell.

you can trap them with a blanced lettuce leaf inside a small jar, and pick them all up when they come to feast on the leaf

[NeptunesMom]

After looking up those three types of snails I will have to say I'm 99.9% sure they are pond snails. They are not Malaysian Trumpet snails or Ramshorns. I will put some lettuce in there and see if I can coax the little guys out of hiding. Now.. what to do with them? Can pond snails live in unheated ponds?

[aokashi]

sure, throw them in, they wont survive a nuclear fallout, but they most likely will survive any water that doesnt freeze

[kfryman]

I never QT in my 15 gallon and I have even tried to put pond snails in. I think my girls eat them lol. My 5.5 has some pond snails and I think 1 ramshorn, moste likely go in the 15 gallon and get eaten or something.

The lettuce doesn't work all that great just FIY, unless I had something in the tank the snails liked better...

[Aus]

The snails won't actually hurt your tank or your fish, and most don't eat healthy plant matter - they will eat dying/dead leaves and algae before chewing healthy leaves (except Aussie blond snails - they will eat your plants to stubs overnight..). Having a few won't harm anything.

I'd only worry if it's very tiny tank, where the bioload become a very big deal and necessitate daily water changes, etc. Huge snails like waterhouse or apple snails have much larger bioloads than a few little pond snails, but the pond snails can quickly build in numbers, so a squishing party might need to happen now and then to keep numbers in check.

My 10 gallon is crawling in snails, of about 4 different species with no harm done at all.

As for 'pet' pond snails - I kept a large coldwater hexagon vase full of them a few years ago. they were fascinating to watch and I very much enjoyed them as pets. Easy to care for (they do need water changes! as much as a fish) and actually quite pretty when they are adults.. They have some very un-snail-like behaviours too, surprised the heck out of me.

[NeptunesMom]

I am worried about them getting out of control in my 10 gallon, I'm worried about sucking them up in my gravel vacuum (not necessarily because it will damage my vacuum but because I'm worried about their safety) and I'm worried about Neptune eating them (again for their own safety).

How big can they get? I'm working on finding homes for them. My cousin is going to take one and put in with her Goldfish, but she was going to keep them separate until it gets bigger.