snails

[isellcars]

Will assassin snails eat any type of snail? I have nerite snails and 2 large mystery snails that I want left alone. I have found a few very unwanted horn snails that I want out of me tank by any means. The assassin snail could eat all the baby snails it wants as long as it would leave the larger ones alone.


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[asenarose]

I had that issue as well. Got 4 assassin snails and the gazillion snails were gone in two days. In fact I like the assassin snails and went to petsmart and asked them for the pest snails to feed to the assassin snails because it was neat to watch. They gave me a ton of them for free and am just keeping them around to watch the hunting. Careful...Have heard that if there are too many of the pest snails, they can ruin filters.

 

[asenarose]

At Cayes they told me they hate all other snails and suggested I move any ones I wanted to keep for a few days to eradicate the bad ones.

 

[isellcars]

I have 9 assassin snails and they have done nothing at all. I even bought them from 2 different lfs to make sure I got the correct snails. They just stroll by the pond and ramshorn snails like they are not even there.


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[everlastace]

I got infested with malaysian trumpet snails and my clown loaches wouldn't eat them, so I put the clowns in another tank and got some assassin snails, and my young Oscars killed the assassins. Snails suck.

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[Pyramid_Party]

Once the Assassins eat all the snails they will need a food source. They can also reproduce too. Also buying loaches is stupid. Most things won't eat malaysian trumnpet snails. Puffers won't even eat them. Also assassins go for weaker/slower snails. So if your pond snails are fast and healthy they won't get them.

@ Isellcars, Assassin snails are not selective, they will attack any snails they can aside from MTS.


Best thing to do about snails is:

1. Learn to like them, they are really not that bad and they can be beneficial like cleaning your tank, breaking down waste, provide natural food for your fish.
2. Feed less and clean more
3. Set traps like bottles in the tank with food overnight and in the morning there will be a good amount in the bottle. Then just discard.


It is usually more hassle to try and get rid of them, and more often you can't get them all unless you tear down the whole tank. If you wanna waste your time and money and add more bioload like buying loaches, chemicals, etc then go ahead. But IMO it is better off learning to live with them.

 

[duanes]

I had enough Malay snails, that every morning, I could barely see thru the glass.
I put in a Paretroplus menerambo, and within 24 hours no snails could be seen.

 

[ecoli73]

Nice fish...but critically endangered...are they easy to get?

 

[duanes]

Don't know about LFSs, but they can be ordered. Others of the genus Paretroplus are snail eaters too.
P maculatus below

they actually have a can opener like tooth for extracting the snail flesh, although mine simply crush most small snails. P menerambo below.

 

[radjess331]

Do they have a particular need to be fed mostly snails or do other things make up their diet?

If you dont have any particular plant or invert in the tank that you like you can treat it with copper or similiar chemicals. Most inverts die with those treatments.