Question
Hi, Robyn and thanks for your time. Our pond in SW Florida has been full for about 3 months. I bought 6 ramshorn snails to keep the algae down before I got all the submerged plants in and a dozen feeder guppies to eat mosquitos. Last month I bought lots of plants on ebay from well respected sellers and planted all 2 weeks ago. At this point we are infested with baby snails - NOT the ramshorn type (though I have found a couple of their babies.) I think the plants may have had eggs on them. These other snails are not round like apple snails, but more kind of oval and pointy at the tail end. I didn't collect wild plants because I wanted to avoid such a problem. Question is: is it a problem? I'm buying goldfish when the plants get larger. Are there fish who will eat the snails? I'm worried that so much animal life, including tadpoles, will put the pond out of balance, though I planted it very heavily. Brand new to ponding and appreciate your help. Peace to you and yours, MBA

Answer
It sounds like the snails you have a lot of may be common pond snails.  They will eat some of your plants.  I have a zillion myself.  They always end up in the ponds even if you don't add them.  Eggs can cling to the feet of birds for example and certainly will be on plants that you add.  I've treated many plants with dilute bleach or potassium permanganate and the snails still got in so I stopped doing that.  Check out my snail species page at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/snail2.htm
My main snail page lists fish that eat snails.  Most are tropical but since you live in Florida, you may be able to use those.  How big is your pond?  Goldfish actually do eat some snails but not a lot.  Orfe eat more but need at least a 600+ gallon pond.  My ponds are overloaded with plants and many kinds of animals.  I let nature take care of the balancing, and everything is still okay after 7 years.  The population levels of my fish, frogs, and snails fluctuate year to year and season to season.

Robyn
fishpondinfo.com