Assassin Snail?

[Jimmyhetten9]

I'm thinking of getting 1 or 2 to help keep the hitchhiker snail population down. I must have introduced a couple of snail eggs from my last planting. I'm really good about cleaning plants before I introduce but some eggs must have gotten past me.

Anyone have experience with Assassin Snails? Good/Bad? How many should I get? 40 gallon, pretty heavily planted.

Do they eat Algae and other remains or do they need to have enough "snail food" to survive?

thanks,

James

 

[Brookster123]

Assassins are really good at population control, they will not eat algae, they will eat left over fish food, if they get enough good they'll reproduce.. I'm a 40 you'd be good with 4-5, if you want fast action eradication get 8 but remove 4 after a month or two.. it's not a bad thing having some mts and pond snails in a planted tank as they benefit in substrate turnover and cleaning and detritus removal. . Than again a million tiny snails everywhere can be an eyesore..
Ps- if you want some pm me..
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Luananeko]

Agreed with Brookster. I've never noticed my Assassins eating any algae, only leftover food and every live snail they can find. I started with 8 in my 75 gallon tank about a year ago and now take 20+ to my LFS for store credit every 2 weeks Between them and my loaches, I haven't seen a live snail in there in quite a long time.

 

[Brookster123]

Do loaches eat assasins? Do they have some unspoken vow to eradicate all pest snails in the whole tank while never bothering eack.other?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[Jimmyhetten9]

Luan, you take 20+ Assassins to your local store every 2 weeks? That's crazy. I didn't realize the Assassins spawn that quickly. That's almost as bad as the regular pond snails I'm starting to get. haha

 

[Luananeko]

Do loaches eat assasins? Do they have some unspoken vow to eradicate all pest snails in the whole tank while never bothering eack.other?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app

Larger loaches might go for the assassins, but my dwarf chain loaches never seem to bother them. However, my friend took some of my extra assassins for her tank and someone in her tank managed to "templar" them all despite there being no loaches in the tank there... Current theory is that it was her upside down catfish or cory cats. Either way, the assassins are not immune to getting predated on

Jimmy - Yes, I was rather shocked at how fast the assassins can breed once their population gets going. They've definitely slowed down now that their live snail buffet has been depleted, but I keep tossing in new pest snails from my other tank, so that combined with leftover scraps has been enough to keep them breeding. They're far less unsightly than the pest snails imo, as they don't lay eggs everywhere, and usually stay buried in the plants and gravel for the most part. Plus I can get store credit for them instead of giving them away free, so I don't mind them Not to mention, the 20+ assassins every other week are still FAR less than the tupperware containers full of pest snails I was yanking out weekly!