assassin snails

[pantherspawn]

OK so a few days ago I purhased 4 small assassin snails to keep the numbers down on the hundreds of pond snails in my planted tank. Thinking 4 would be enough to keep a population explosion down, but not enough to rid the tank completely... well these must have been the hungriest snails alive. Within four days, I went from literally not being able to find a place without pond snails, to having to search really hard to find one. My question is this, do I need to start buying snails to feed them soon, or is there going to be a hidden supply to keep them going? I wasn't expecting them to rid the tank completely or nearly that fast. I was told four of them would still allow a small breeding colony of pond snails to survive in a ten gallon.. not decimating the colony in a 55 gallon.

 

[AquaOne]

Wow, that's encouraging !
I am not keen on snails and have a contiuous battle to remove them every pwc. I don't like the chemical option since it treats the water and I have fish that have to swim in it, and anyway it only knock's the snails out for a while, then I have to collect them up, so not a good option IMO. Also, the chemical does nothing at all to the snail eggs, so back to square-one in no time ! I might just be tempted to get an assassin, but do they then breed and become the new snail problem ??

 

[pantherspawn]

They do mate, though its impossible to sex them, you generally need a decent group to be able to populate. They take 6 months to reach maturity to even really be seen as they hid in the subtstrate and from what I've read they only reproduce when food supply is ample for a period of time. They won't get out of control if there isn't a huge supply of food for extended periods of time. They are strictly meat eaters so once the nuisance snail population is under control, they don't really breed.

 

[Pecktec]

I'm surprised it worked so well. Ours just cruses around and doesn’t seem to eat any.

 

[Pecktec]

I have heard the will eat fish food as well so I don’t think you will have to supplement with more snails.

 

[OkiTank]

Since this thread is not that old I am interested in hearing updates. I too have the problem of too many pond snails in my RCS tank (have since cut back in food) and got 4 assassin snails to "control" the problem. Thing is I have only found 2 shells of the pond snails since introducing them over a month ago. I don't know what of if they are eating, but they aren't really doing the job that I thought.

Not sure exactly how to solve this except for just trying to starve the assassins into eating. Anybody had this experience where they had a slow start and then appetite picked up? Thanks.

 

[warthog76za]

@OkiTank takes a while for them to get going....but believe me, they do their job, they have all but wiped out the pond snails I had. Ive also noticed they tend to be on the hunt more at night, mornings you will just see empty shells at the bottom. They are a very good investment IMO.

Also when there are no more pond snails they will start eating any left over food at the bottom.