Snails

I have a snail in my fish tank.

I shouldn't have a snail in my fish tank. I didn't put a snail in my fish tank. I put fish in my fish tank, but I never put a snail in my fish tank.

I just cleaned it out a month ago. I cleaned it out completely. Emptied it out, scrubbed it clean, got new rocks and plants and fish for it, and then re-filled it. I had two fish already. An algae-eater that had grown to giantic proportions due to overfeading and another fish that nobody seems to be able to identify but is probably in the Danio family. When I restocked the tank, I chose to go with easy first, and got a bunch of smaller danios and tetras. Got some freshwater plants because I never had any, and a couple of pieces of driftwood to give it a more natural look than it had.

I never got any snails. I know I didn't because I had thought about it and rejected the idea because I wanted to make sure I could keep the fish alive first.

So how did it get there? I can't imagine it was from the rocks, because they were packaged so tightly they would have crushed the little thing. It really is tiny. The driftwood, possibly, but it would have had to be dormant, because the wood was dry. Certainly not the fish, because there were no snails in any of the breeding tanks. That leaves the plants. Would have been plenty of places to hide in the greenery.

Buy I only see the thing for the first time tonight? I was making another entry, and I look over at the tank, and there it is, crawling across the back glass of the tank. It's been a month, like I said. The only reason I can imagine why I haven't seen it before now is because I accidently buried the thing when I planted the plants. It's probably spent the last couple of weeks digging itself out of the rocks.

Not that I mind. Snails are algae eaters, too. And I've got an algae problem right now, so that's cool.

I've got a snail in my fish tank.

Helluva thing.