In acids level pH, snail sheels will dissolve and try to make the water harder. this sounds more like a biomass problem. The bubbles on the surface show high proteins in the water. The cloudy part shows imbalance in the water like new tank syndrome. The hundreds of snails will add to the bio load just like fish do. Add to this fish food that drops into the gravel and decays, (if the snails don't get it), plus the fish load and viola, overloaded tank.
You can put a heavy piece of leaf lettuce in and after a few hpurs, it will be loaded with snails....scoop it and them out. Repeat many times. A plastic pop bottle with a few tabi-min or similar will attract a lot of snails and make removal fairly easy. Just scraping them up as you change water, or simply reach in and grab and squeeze. (This is easy with pond types, but very hard with the malayasian live bearering snails (the pointy shelled ones). They are very tuff.
Cut back feeding to try to get the bacteria build up balanced. Water changes will slow this down, but may be needed to keep ammonia and nitrogen problems under control until you get squared away.
Puffers will eat many snails, some gourami's will eat them, botias will eat them. Failing that, remove the fish, toss the gravel, and wash the tank out with clean water and some bleach. Let it set for 24 hours with a double dose of declor and sniff. If you smell chlorine, repeat to get the rest of the bleach. Not much is needed to kill the snails. You will probably see egg packets everywhere if you look, unless they are the live bearers.
--- On Mon, 11/2/09, tootsie2toes2 <tootsie2toes2@...> wrote:
From: tootsie2toes2 <tootsie2toes2@...>
Subject: [Corydoras and More] cloudy water with foam on top
To: corydorasandmore@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 3:13 PM
Could an abundance of snail shells in the gravel cause a high protein count, making water soupy with foam on top? I have had a small snail problem for years. I clean the filter every week and change almost half the water every week, but I still get cloudy water with foam on the surface. I also get rid of hundreds of the snails every week, but there are also a lot of empty shells on the bottom.
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