Assassin Snails - Pros And Cons?

[the_lock_man]

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...

Once the babies are born, they bury themselves in the gravel for a few weeks whilst they grow bigger. So you could have brazilions of them in there.

I couldn't quite believe it when I first saw my first baby assassin - it was the first time I'd ever seen a baby anything in my aquarium.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

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?

I find it quite exciting to find the babies, incredibly tiny and they only seem to come out (or at least some) first thing in the morning.

No idea what I will do with them, they aren't all that fast growing... so maybe come the spring time I might end up selling some on ebay. That's where I got mine and the packaging was so simple!

 

[NewBea]

I find it quite exciting to find the babies, incredibly tiny and they only seem to come out (or at least some) first thing in the morning.

No idea what I will do with them, they aren't all that fast growing... so maybe come the spring time I might end up selling some on ebay. That's where I got mine and the packaging was so simple!

wow - ebay?! how did that work? I never knew you can sell things alive - or to put it more accurately: selling is one thing but the delivery?
Maybe I get some babies off you then

 

[twofish]

I started with 2 assassins, they are slow eaters or vacum eaters, maybe 2-3 snails per day per assassin, they get the job done. I did see a crystal red shrimp get dragged to its death, I felt helpless but as the others say maybe it was sick when the assassin strolled by. The babies are so cute, look just like the adults but TINY. They lay eggs one at a time, all over the place, on rocks, plants(fake and real). So I have tons of these assassins hiding all over and I have never found an empty shell. They have never assinated the larger snails, they leave them alone. I have 11 Bamboo shrimps and they are safe except when they shed I have seen the assassin snails eat the exo. So funny to watch, they have this little tube thing that they stick out to find food, even when burried in the sand, these tubes are sticking out, waiting...

 

[PrairieSunflower]

wow - ebay?! how did that work? I never knew you can sell things alive - or to put it more accurately: selling is one thing but the delivery?
Maybe I get some babies off you then

There are fish, shrimp, snails and even chickens on ebay!

I ordered snails over the summer only to make sure the temperature wouldn't be too cold. They come packed in soaked filter floss in a sealed plastic container, very small and they arrived safely and in perfect health.... clearly since I now have LOADS.

 

[chubbs9]

just one question,what happens when you get over run by assasin snails after adding them to kill the pest snails
i got loads of malaysian trumpet snails in my tank and i used a snail treatment for over a week using 2 bottles at the proper doses,where it killed loads of them.there are still loads left..

cheers

chubbs

 

[fluttermoth]

You won't get overrun by assassins, not like you do with pest snails.

If you do get too many, then they're very easy to sell/give away.

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I've had babies for a couple of months now and the biggest of them are still small... will take a long time to be overrun! I plan on first approaching the LFS to see if they want to buy them or selling them on ebay come the spring/summer.

 

[chubbs9]

just ordered 3 off ebay,not worried how long it takes as long as they work,or keep the numbers down ...

cheers

chubbs

 

[the_lock_man]

I'm not sure if you'd class it as "overrun" but when mine started multiplying, I got 40odd of them at various sizes, and swapped them with my LFS for some black sand.