I bought an apple snail and two and a half weeks on I've seen two tiny snails, about the size of apple pips, crawling up the tank! The pet shop is happy to take the babies, should we end up with too many.

I've got three guppies, a cat fish and a siamese fighting fish (it doesn't fight!) in the tank, as well as the mother snail and her babies.

The problem I've got is that I need to clean the gravel using one of those gravel cleaning pumps. It's the first time I'll be using it, but I don't want to kill the babies. However the pet shop warned the tank will need cleaning as it's 25L and almost at full capacity.

Any ideas?

Place a shallow dish or flat stone in the tank with a bit of food in the center. leave it for a few hours, come back and collect the snails that have gathered in your trap. repeat if needed. pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com

You can hold off on using the vacuum until the babies get larger if you increase the frequency of water changes. change the water without vacuuming the gravel.

I would probably just go ahead and clean the gravel like normal. You'll suck up a few babies but there will likely be plenty of survivors that manage to hide from you.

ps. be careful handling the baby snails. shells break very easily.