Assassin Snails - Pros And Cons?

[NewBea]

I've asked my fish shop whether they could recommend a way to get rid of my ever increasing number of snails in my tank (as the usual lettuce and courgettes trick doesn't seem to work) and they offered me some assassin snails.

Other than the obvious benefit (getting rid of the other snails) does anyone know any other benefits or cons for keeping them?
What happens if they finished with all the other snails in the tank? Do they just die - can they be fed with something else?

In general what's your experience with them?
I googled them but there wasn't a huge amount of detail on them.

Thanks

 

[fluttermoth]

Pros; eat pest snails, look nice, breed quite slowly, and there's a demand for youngsters, eat left over food from the substrate, don't touch plants

Cons; um....um....errr...nope, can't think of any! Oh, there's one con; they will eat non-pest snails, like apples and nerites, as well as pest ones.

 

[Tuxyu3]

What fluttermoth said. They will also stir sand if there is any, they like to bury themselves in it to ambush snails.

 

[Chad]

How about other inverts like shrimp? Do they eat those or ever go after fish?

 

[Tuxyu3]

Only half-dead (so they can't swim away) fish i believe, usually inverts are too fast.

 

[tribalbrit]

mine are in with shrimps no problems to report.

 

[fluttermoth]

Yep, I have assassins and shrimps together with no problem. Assassins will scavenge dead or dying fish and shrimps, but not healthy ones.

 

[NewBea]

Ah, this is great news! Interesting how I've never seen their name popping up in any of the google searches I've done for "getting rid of pest snails in fish tanks" - everyone always talking about lettuce leaf left over night and picking them out by hand which was absolutely useless.
It's great to know that they eat dead fish as well - not that I want to see dead fish in my tank but I had some fries and out of the 14 I initially counted I can only see 8 in the last few days. I half spotted one dead but it was so small that once it moved slightly it just got lost in the gravel - so obviously making the water quality worse by rotting in there.

So they will stay alive even if there is no more pest snail? Mind you what I've read about pest snails is that they lay hundreds of eggs and it's almost impossible to get rid of them entirely.

 

[tribalbrit]

Assassins will do the trick and I have seen them for sale for 50p each

 

[Steve76]

Ive added a couple of assasins recently and my pest snails have been reduced to next to notthing

 

[Chad]

Great thread, I will share it on facebook and twitter!

 

[phantomlink]

My assassin did good job in my 20 gallon, unfortunately it seems the ich medicine killed him even at half dose but my kuhlis are still safe!

 

[the_lock_man]

So they will stay alive even if there is no more pest snail? Mind you what I've read about pest snails is that they lay hundreds of eggs and it's almost impossible to get rid of them entirely.

That's only true if you are still overfeeding your fish, and therefore giving the pest snails enough food to breed.

I have assassins in both my tanks, and have absolutely no pest snails at all. Once a week I pop in a Cory wafer, which they love, in fact I watched the one in my small tank do a quick about-face when it realised the wafer was there - rather funny to watch.

You have two options with the assassins, really. A single snail won't get rid of an infestation of pest snails overnight. You can either buy 1 or 2, and let them get on with it (along with controlling yourself on the feeding issue). Eventually they'll win, it might take a month or 2.

Or you can get 5 or 6, they'll eliminate the snails quicker, but are more likely to breed themselves. You could become overrun with assassins, BUT, they have a re-sale value. I swapped a bag of about 40 of them for some black sand with one of my LFS.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I have A LOT of assassin snails... apparently one of my tanks is absolutely ideal breeding grounds. LOL

I have 3 assassins in my shrimp tank (keeping the pest snails at bay... they never really eat all of them, just keep the numbers low), they have never eaten my shrimp, not even the one that died.

I have thereabouts 15 in my largest tank... I rarely ever see them!! They keep the pest snails in check beautifully there and eat leftover food (that tank has the most fish so there is usually enough leftovers).

My medium tank has.... I couldn't even guess how many assassins... that I could see... I counted 31 babies... but they are AMAZING hiders so I am guessing there could easily be double that many babies in there..... really not sure how they manage to get enough to eat in there as the tank doesn't get overfed and I rarely even see a pest snail... though lots of empty shells when vacuum.... but something is going really right in there as they aren't breeding in the other two tanks!

I don't think there are any cons unless you want to keep them with other snails in which case it is unlikely the other snails will live...

 

[NewBea]

So they will stay alive even if there is no more pest snail? Mind you what I've read about pest snails is that they lay hundreds of eggs and it's almost impossible to get rid of them entirely.

That's only true if you are still overfeeding your fish, and therefore giving the pest snails enough food to breed.

I have assassins in both my tanks, and have absolutely no pest snails at all. Once a week I pop in a Cory wafer, which they love, in fact I watched the one in my small tank do a quick about-face when it realised the wafer was there - rather funny to watch.

You have two options with the assassins, really. A single snail won't get rid of an infestation of pest snails overnight. You can either buy 1 or 2, and let them get on with it (along with controlling yourself on the feeding issue). Eventually they'll win, it might take a month or 2.

Or you can get 5 or 6, they'll eliminate the snails quicker, but are more likely to breed themselves. You could become overrun with assassins, BUT, they have a re-sale value. I swapped a bag of about 40 of them for some black sand with one of my LFS.

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I ended up getting 3 and after about 2 days I barely see any pests around - very happy with the results!!! Good tip regarding the wafer - I will get hold of some. By the way the fish weren't overfed as I was trying to keep ammonia levels at bay they were only getting food once a day and tiny amounts - sometimes if the water quality was too bad they only had feed after 2 days. I've heard that it's better to miss a couple of feeds than overfeeding them so I kept feeding to the minimum in the last 2-3 weeks. Only when water quality was good they had a slightly larger portion.

I have A LOT of assassin snails... apparently one of my tanks is absolutely ideal breeding grounds. LOL

I have 3 assassins in my shrimp tank (keeping the pest snails at bay... they never really eat all of them, just keep the numbers low), they have never eaten my shrimp, not even the one that died.

I have thereabouts 15 in my largest tank... I rarely ever see them!! They keep the pest snails in check beautifully there and eat leftover food (that tank has the most fish so there is usually enough leftovers).

My medium tank has.... I couldn't even guess how many assassins... that I could see... I counted 31 babies... but they are AMAZING hiders so I am guessing there could easily be double that many babies in there..... really not sure how they manage to get enough to eat in there as the tank doesn't get overfed and I rarely even see a pest snail... though lots of empty shells when vacuum.... but something is going really right in there as they aren't breeding in the other two tanks!

I don't think there are any cons unless you want to keep them with other snails in which case it is unlikely the other snails will live...

The babies must look very cute they do look quite pretty anyway. I wish I had them in my tank from the start really. They are great little creatures by the sounds of all the feedback I had
What are you going to do with the babies?