Fish tank surprise - Assassin Snail

[Autumnsky]

Well I was shocked today as I was leaving for work to see a pretty large sized Assassin Snail, about 1cm!!! I have not purchased an Assassin Snail.

This is in my 6.6G Fire Red shrimp tank. I am more than a little bit surprised.

On one hand I was going to purchase a couple to eat a few MTS snails, but not for THAT tank. It has my Grandaddy Ramshorn Snails.

What is so strange is how big it is, and how long was it in there and exactly what they will eat?

I had noticed a few/several, maybe 5 dead snail shells, but occasionally that can happen, and figured they had just settled in one corner.

I hadn't bought any Assassin Snails yet as I hadn't got to the finding about them specifically... if they eat baby shrimp, how many snails and how often they eat them, do they eat MTS, large ones, small ones?

I am not sure if i should have it in any tank!

Help!

It is so beautiful! But deadly, and I love my Red and Blue Ramshorn snails!

This guy maybe came like a grain of sand, in with the Fire Red Shrimp. I don't really know how else...

 

[GodFan]

Well I was shocked today as I was leaving for work to see a pretty large sized Assassin Snail, about 1cm!!! I have not purchased an Assassin Snail.

This is in my 6.6G Fire Red shrimp tank. I am more than a little bit surprised.

On one hand I was going to purchase a couple to eat a few MTS snails, but not for THAT tank. It has my Grandaddy Ramshorn Snails.

What is so strange is how big it is, and how long was it in there and exactly what they will eat?

I had noticed a few/several, maybe 5 dead snail shells, but occasionally that can happen, and figured they had just settled in one corner.

I hadn't bought any Assassin Snails yet as I hadn't got to the finding about them specifically... if they eat baby shrimp, how many snails and how often they eat them, do they eat MTS, large ones, small ones?

I am not sure if i should have it in any tank!

Help!

It is so beautiful! But deadly, and I love my Red and Blue Ramshorn snails!

This guy maybe came like a grain of sand, in with the Fire Red Shrimp. I don't really know how else...

An assassn will eat maybe 1 snail every other day. It will eat MTS. It should leave shrimplets alone. I would remove it if you dont want alot of them. They will , contrary to popular belief, reproduce quiet quickly with lots of live food to eat. It will hide under the sand after eating. They will lay little square shaped gel sacks with one white dot in the middle as the eggs. Once hatched the babies hide in the substrate for a long time.

 

[octanejunkie]

I put a small assassin snail in our shrimp tank to control the pond snail invasion; which continues.

It does bury itself in the substrate, sometimes for days it seems. We are using shrimp sand only.

 

[Autumnsky]

I couldn't find it last night or today, but there is an adult MTS snail shell right at the back of the tank where I saw it.

There is only purchased new sand in there (Petco kind)

So do I just dig around to find it in the sand. Then if I find it what should I do with it? I am not too sure were to put it.

Do they like small and young snails or big ones?

 

[GodFan]

I couldn't find it last night or today, but there is an adult MTS snail shell right at the back of the tank where I saw it.

There is only purchased new sand in there (Petco kind)

So do I just dig around to find it in the sand. Then if I find it what should I do with it? I am not too sure were to put it.

Do they like small and young snails or big ones?

They like big ones. I would just wait till he surfaces again. Do you have another tank to put him in.

 

[Autumnsky]

They like big ones. I would just wait till he surfaces again. Do you have another tank to put him in.

Yes there a a bunch of MTS in a tank I don't have RH snails in. Then there are a bunch of pond snails that just hatched in one little tank, with my Orange Eye Blue Tigers and my newer Blue Velvet youngster shrimp. So if I find the Assassin, I can drop him in there to eat some of them

Do they eat Mystery snails too? The info I read said if a Mollusk passes by they come out and devour them...? Kinda like a Commando snail.

I just don't want him to eat my shrimp! Maybe the shrimp scampers away and snails are slow pokes, they would eat a dead shrimp ...?

At least this makes sense of the litter of shell fragments everywhere.

Do they eat bottom feeder food if there aren't any snails, what to feed them?

 

[Mebbid]

They will eat bottom feeder wafers. I have had them in my 55g forever and while they really do keep the pond snails in check I haven't hardly ever seen them eat my MTS. They will kill other snails for sure though.

 

[GodFan]

Yes there a a bunch of MTS in a tank I don't have RH snails in. Then there are a bunch of pond snails that just hatched in one little tank, with my Orange Eye Blue Tigers and my newer Blue Velvet youngster shrimp. So if I find the Assassin, I can drop him in there to eat some of them

Do they eat Mystery snails too? The info I read said if a Mollusk passes by they come out and devour them...? Kinda like a Commando snail.

I just don't want him to eat my shrimp! Maybe the shrimp scampers away and snails are slow pokes, they would eat a dead shrimp ...?

At least this makes sense of the litter of shell fragments everywhere.

Do they eat bottom feeder food if there aren't any snails, what to feed them?

They will not eat shrinp unless it is dead. Anything will eat a dead one though
They generally will not take on something as large as a mystery snail. I have never heard of it happening. They will eat pond, ramshorn, and mts I know.
They will eat regular bottom feeder food. They will actually survive with no food added if there is algae. However they will not reproduce unless they have live snails.

 

[Autumnsky]

So saw the Assassin snail out again and I caught it this time and it had been eating the body of some snail I guess because the snack food snail came with it and I dropped into the tank with the pond snails.

After just sitting in the moss for awhile it went straight for the Crab Cuisine I had just before dropped in for the shrimp... and the pond snails were already there and a couple shrimp came over. So not sure if it was there for the buffet of pond snails or Crab Cuisine. LOL

Now I am on the look out for any other Assassins which just happened to get in there!!!

 

[octanejunkie]

After just sitting in the moss for awhile it went straight for the Crab Cuisine I had just before dropped in for the shrimp... and the pond snails were already there and a couple shrimp came over. So not sure if it was there for the buffet of pond snails or Crab Cuisine.

I know what you mean... LOL

The assassin in our 6G Cyl Tank loves the Zoo Med Shrimp and Lobster pellets I throw in for our CPO. I have yet to see Shelly the assassin eat another snail. Here is a pic of our cray having his lunch stolen

The object of desire is the white nugget between them that the snail is rolling over... CPO's pinchers were completely ineffective in deterring Shelly

 

[Autumnsky]

I know what you mean... LOL

The assassin in our 6G Cyl Tank loves the Zoo Med Shrimp and Lobster pellets I throw in for our CPO. I have yet to see Shelly the assassin eat another snail. Here is a pic of our cray having his lunch stolen

The object of desire is the white nugget between them that the snail is rolling over... CPO's pinchers were completely ineffective in deterring Shelly

So funny and great picture!!! I love them both, CPO and Assassin snail.

 

[Cageyme]

What's the longest you've gone without seeing your assassins. I'm starting to think they're actually ninja assassins because I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks.

 

[octanejunkie]

What's the longest you've gone without seeing your assassins. I'm starting to think they're actually ninja assassins because I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks.

We have small tanks but I sometimes don't see them for a day or two, so far that has been the longest.

 

[Cageyme]

I actually saw one of them tonight when I got home from work. First time in about 2 weeks.

 

[Autumnsky]

So far about 5 days now since I put him in.

But before that maybe 2 months, or more because I never put it in there as an adult, but as a grain of sand, so how long does it take it to grow up from almost invisible to 1/3-1/2", adult size?

hatchling to adult?