# How serious is finding tiny snails in your plants?



## silence882 (May 9, 2020)

Hi all,

I am an indoor grower and have found a few tiny snails in the past couple months on my plants. On a scale of don't-worry-about-it to kill-it-with-fire, how concerned should I be? Their shells are about 5 mm across. I have no idea where they came from as they showed up when I hadn't gotten new plants in a long while.







Thanks for any advice!

--Stephen


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## CarlG (May 9, 2020)

Kill them with fire. They reproduce with enthusiasm, eat roots and flower buds, and generally are [almost] as big a pest as squirrels.

You can get them from bark - the eggs will survive dry for some time.


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## silence882 (May 9, 2020)

CarlG said:


> Kill them with fire. They reproduce with enthusiasm, eat roots and flower buds, and generally are [almost] as big a pest as squirrels.
> 
> You can get them from bark - the eggs will survive dry for some time.



Thanks! Any advice on what to use to kill them?


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## littlefrog (May 9, 2020)

Trap the adults with a romaine lettuce leaf. You can use the same leaf for many days, just pick off the bush snails, squish, replace leaf.

Or, try submerging the whole pot in some water with a little bit of detergent. Adults will come to the top. It may or may not get the eggs. Repot. Snail eggs are fairly large, you can actually see them pretty well, they come in clusters.

If you let them get established in the collection, you will probably never be able to get rid of them. There are worse pests, but these little guys are pretty evil.


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## abax (May 9, 2020)

You can try diatomaceous earth sprinkled on the
top of the pots and around the growing area. It's
not necessarily fool proof, but DE is relatively
safe. You can usually find DE at Lowes, Target
and perhaps at Wal-Mart in the garden section.


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## KateL (May 10, 2020)

I use the pet safe formulation of Sluggo (not the Sluggo plus) and it is very effective. Basically, it’s iron phosphate and can even be used in organic gardening.


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## Ray (May 10, 2020)

Bush snails are not attracted by iron phosphate baits. Measurol is the way to go.


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## KateL (May 10, 2020)

I defer to Ray. 
(My little snails must have been different ones, because it worked for me.)


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## Ray (May 10, 2020)

I tried iron phosphate baits, and the bush snails were not attracted to it at all, and my limited experience is what made me recommend measurol.


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## silence882 (May 10, 2020)

Thanks for all the advice! I'll give the measurol a shot and hope it kills them.


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## fibre (May 11, 2020)

Does anyone of you has ever seen a real damage by these little snails with your own eyes??? I have lots of them but I NEVER spotted any damage caused by them. They eat old leaves that I have overseen between the pots and help decomposting them. There is no problem for my Paphs to live with these little snails and there is no need for me to treat with pesticides.


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## awesomei (May 11, 2020)

Same for me. I don't see them often. But, have never seen them damage any living tissue. Slugs on the other hand can be very destructive. I use deadline for sluges. I just paint it on the rim of each pot. It attracts and poisons them. It may like snails as well. Thus, I see so few???


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## Ray (May 11, 2020)

fibre said:


> Does anyone of you has ever seen a real damage by these little snails with your own eyes??? I have lots of them but I NEVER spotted any damage caused by them. They eat old leaves that I have overseen between the pots and help decomposting them. There is no problem for my Paphs to live with these little snails and there is no need for me to treat with pesticides.


Yes, I have seen them eat flower buds - or at least ruin them.


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## Guldal (May 11, 2020)

I can wholeheartedly concur with those of you, who go for the 'fire and brimstone'-approach, as I in a nursery have seen the damage, that can be done by snails when undetected. I also agree with the comment, that slugs might be the worst of the lot. 

Fortunately, I have only in a limited measure had to deal with this sort of pest in my own collection (as opposed to mealy bugs, that I in periods really have had to fiercely struggle with). With the few snails and slugs, I've had, mechanical pest control have been sufficient: thin slices of carrots placed in the top of the pot and then at an appropriate interval removed (together with the snails/slugs) and replaced (littlefrogs romaine lettuce leaf proposal might help vary the diet in the trap). If the infestation is too advanced and too comprehensive, you might have to turn to other means: drowning as described by littlefrog (repeating the procedure x more in accordance with the snail's hatching cyclus) or chemical warfare.

Good luck!


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## Bob in Albany N.Y. (May 11, 2020)

Just a side note. I don't believe that just anyone can purchase mesurol.


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## luvsorchids (May 11, 2020)

I agree with Bob. I had a friend trying to purchase it and couldn't in the U.S. On the other hand, I did somewhat recently see a small article in the AOS bulletin that says these snails are attracted to the yellow sticky insect paper and stick to it. I don't have any personal experience with this, but might be worth a try.


Susan


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## Silverwhisp (May 11, 2020)

luvsorchids said:


> I agree with Bob. I had a friend trying to purchase it and couldn't in the U.S. On the other hand, I did somewhat recently see a small article in the AOS bulletin that says these snails are attracted to the yellow sticky insect paper and stick to it. I don't have any personal experience with this, but might be worth a try.
> 
> 
> Susan


I have had a couple of them stuck on yellow sticky paper.


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## NYEric (May 11, 2020)

I have seen them destroy roots and leaves. Kill all and watch out if they've laid eggs!


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## silence882 (May 11, 2020)

I have a small collection of plants packed in a tight space. I am also deeply sentimentally attached to it. So when I see a threat, I tend to go flamethrower immediately.

In this case, I'm going to start with chemical warfare, wait a while, and then use lettuce or carrots to see if the problem has been solved.


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## abax (May 11, 2020)

I've seen part of a Phal. species collection destroyed
by bush snails. Measurol was the only thing that
killed them all after two drenchings.


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## Stone (May 12, 2020)

They like to come out when it's very humid or after heavy watering. They love to eat root tips. I used to be able to get ''snaileen'' liquid but that was banned. Last time I had a problem with these I crushed half a handful of pellets (metaldehyde) in a mortar and pestle. (don't use in your kitchen again!) into as fine a dust as possible. You can use it as the powder sprinkled where you need it but I went a step further because I was at war with the little bastards, so I added water to the powder and mixed it into a ''mud'', then washed it through a rag into my sprayer and sprayed everything with that. After watering is best. I didn't see one of those snails again for a year at least.


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## Ray (May 12, 2020)

Bob in Albany N.Y. said:


> Just a side note. I don't believe that just anyone can purchase mesurol.


That is my understanding as well, although back when I stocked a lot of pesticides, I was able to purchase Deadline MPs without a license. Maybe the vendor viewed a “company” purchase to be OK.

FWIW, I saw “Force II Deadline” available on Amazon.


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## silence882 (May 13, 2020)

Found about a dozen baby snails.

Metaldehyde pellets have been deployed.

Now.

We wait.


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## abax (May 13, 2020)

Good luck! If that doesn't do the trick, I do have
a license and can get Measurol for you.


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## silence882 (May 13, 2020)

abax said:


> Good luck! If that doesn't do the trick, I do have
> a license and can get Measurol for you.


Thanks very much! I'll keep this thread updated with the results.

I'm really hoping the metaldehyde works as Mesurol seems significantly more toxic based on what I've read.


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## abax (May 14, 2020)

Indeed it is very toxic...smells horrible too.


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## DrLeslieEe (May 15, 2020)

I have seen bush snails devastate my mounted miniatures in my cool tank. A friend of mine suggested these Sluggo pellets of iron met. at a rate of 2-3 pellets placed into the mounts near roots. It has given him positive results in destroying these snails. I am trying that now as I received the Sluggo from Amazon last week. 

Also these bush snail will eat the new roots of cattleyas. It's best to control them. They are not harmless. I will drop about 5 pellets into each Cattleya pots too.


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## silence882 (Oct 18, 2020)

Long overdue update: snails are gone

I repotted everything and dropped several metaldehyde pellets on top of each pot. I waited a few weeks and reapplied the metaldehyde. Then, due to my abundance of paranoia, again a few weeks later.

They is dead.


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## SouthPark (Oct 19, 2020)

I haven't tried it before, and can't even order it - as I'm in Australia. But in USA ----- I do spot something called *kaffn8*. Would be interesting if a suitable dosage of that in water could help out - without doing anything nasty to the orchid that is.

*UPDATE*: I just checked the ingredients of kaffn8 online ----- it contains some citric acid. So probably better skip that idea.


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## SouthPark (Oct 19, 2020)

Forgot to mention. I agree ------ snails in the pot and snails in the growing area - potentially serious and deadly for orchids.


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## abax (Oct 19, 2020)

I remember using a product called Metaldehyde. If I recall correctly, I had to show a
pesticide license # to purchase it


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## chris20 (Oct 20, 2020)

Death to snails! I had them in my smallish collection and they ate every root tip they could find. I resorted to looking for them at night with a flashlight every night and I eventually got them all.
i repotted everything as well just to make sure.


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## abax (Oct 20, 2020)

I have seen Metadehyde marketed as Measurol at OFE international in FL.


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## cnycharles (Oct 20, 2020)

Citric acid is fine. It’s a common ‘soft’ ph lowerer for horticulture. ‘Hard’ would be nitric acid for example. We’ve had discussion here in the past using caffeine to kill snails very effectively


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## silence882 (Oct 21, 2020)

abax said:


> I remember using a product called Metaldehyde. If I recall correctly, I had to show a
> pesticide license # to purchase it


I may have had someone send me a small amount on the d/l....


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## abax (Oct 21, 2020)

If that was quite a long time ago as a member of OSF, I believe that was me. ;>) Metaldehyde does the
trick with two or three drenchings. Glad to run across you again.


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## Ray (Oct 22, 2020)

Not this time, Angela.

I used to carry “Deadline MP’s” as part of my regular product line. I had a few tubs left over, so sent him one.


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## Justin (Oct 22, 2020)

I have seen them a few times in my collection over the years, but never turned into any kind of infestation.


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## silence882 (Oct 22, 2020)

Got my supply recently. As Ray said, he kindly sent me a tub of pellets . 

Chemicals are the best.


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## abax (Oct 22, 2020)

I sent some to someone a long time ago and it wasn't pellets. Oops!


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