LeighMo wrote:
I have baby MTS crawling into my power filter
and clogging up the intake and sponge layer

Do you have a pre-filter on the intake? That will probably help. They sell
generic prefilters (black foam cylinders that slide over just about every
standard intake) for a few bucks each at PetSolutions.com and other pet supply
places. It keeps the snails from ruining your filter. One or two may still
get in, but prefilters help a lot.

Yeah, I've already thought about the prefilter idea. I've ordered a sponge
that should function as a prefilter by mail-order when I did all my food
mail-ordering this week. It should come sometime next week. I'm still
concerned that the very small snails will get through the sponge, but at
least those won't clog up the intake as badly as the ~0.5-1" ones do.

As for getting rid of them...trapping works very well, especially when the
population is so large. They'll be hungry. Put a big slice of apple or
zucchini on a saucer on the bottom of the tank. (Weigh it down with lead plant
weights, if necessary.) It will be covered with snails by the next morning,
and you can just lift the whole saucer out, snails and all. Do this a couple
of times, and the population will drop sharply. You won't get rid of them all,
but you can easily knock the population down to more aesthetic levels.

Ah, that sounds much easier to lift out than a couple of the other
suggestions. Maybe I'll sink one of my 1 cup measuring cups that I usually
use to mix up food. I know those don't have any soap residue on them
(which I'd worry about with "normal" dishes, hard tap water means the
dishwasher doesn't rinse well). Hmm... I also have a "nursery" net that is
usually meant to float up top for picked upon fry. Perhaps that would work
as well if weighed down.

On a side note, if anyone in the Davis/Sacramento CA area wants MTS, speak
up now. I have plenty to give away.