I need some advice on assassin snails

[julielynn47]

I really need some advice on assassin snails. When I set up my tank, many many years ago, I bought plants to put in the tank. I didn't even have fish yet when I saw a speck on the glass. Turned out to be a ramshorn snail....and the rest, as they say, is history. My tank is overrun with ramshorn snails. There have been times when it was hard to see the sand substrate due to snails.

I have given them away to whoever wants some, I have picked out snails for years to the tune of thousands...yes, thousands, no joke. I even started a snail tank last winter and would pick them out and put them in that tank. But I do not want to run a tank just for pest snails. Not now nor ever again. I want to be rid of them entirely. They eat plants, and not just dead ones. They have killed, ate to death rather, some amazon swords. Chewed them until the just died. They dirty the substrate and make the tank stink. I don't know what to do with them. Again today I pulled my huge amazon sword out of the substrate to pick snails off the bottom of the healthy leaves and out of the root system of the plant. This is a huge plant and they almost killed once. They eat the leaves and the roots. This picking them out is an everyday thing that has been going on for years.

Needless to say I am so tired of it. I have literally tried everything I know to try...except assassin snails. I am wondering, do they really work? Will they eat plants too? Will they hurt my fish? Any help and knowledge will be appreciated )

 

[emeraldking]

Assassin snails really do their job. Specifically with round shaped snails. Mine leave others nails with a similar shape like themselves alone overhere. But yes, also assassin snails can eat your plants if they're out of snails or waste (like e.g. dead plants, dead fish or food leftovers). They won't hurt your fish. They'll only eat dead fish. They won't reproduce that massively in a short time like pest snails do. So, that's a plus!
I've got assassin snails for many years now and I'm really happy having them.

 

[Sleeveless]

Following. I've got pest snails. I believe Bladder snails from some Alder cones I used. I pull at least 10 a day. Nowhere near as infested as OP, but need to get rid of these things and not snail hunt every day.

 

[Magnum Man]

Just as an FYI... Assassin snails will eat left over fish food, before they eat pest snails, & they can interbreed in your tank as well, so you could end up with lots in the tank... pest snails most often come in, on plants but thrive on extra fish food... you can really limit their reproduction, if there is no extra food for them to clean up

 

[Sleeveless]

I'm thinking of snail trap with some zucchini.

 

[sharkweek178]

Pest snails will populate up to the level of their food supply. Overfeeding is the big one. Also ambient algae and dead plant matter. So reigning in overfeeding, controlling algae and pruning dead plants go a long way to controlling pest snails.
Here's the dirty little secret of assassin snails. They'll actually prefer to eat uneaten fish food to other snails. So if you're overfeeding, not only is that causing the pest snails to overpopulate, but then the assassins won't do as much about it. I learned that one the hard way.
Ramshorns are actually a good addition to a tank. They make for a nice little cleanup crew when they stay in reasonable numbers. Here's the thing about them and live plants. Pest snails aren't strong enough to rasp on healthy plants. So if they're eating your swords, it sounds like there's a problem with the plants. Swords are very heavy root feeders. So possibly they aren't getting enough nourishment from the substrate. They need like 3 or 4 root tabs.

 

[julielynn47]

Thanks for everyone's input!!

My amazon swords are healthy. The one I am most worried about has leaves that spread out a foot or more in the tank and the leaves are as tall as the water level. I have been fighting these snails off this plant for about 2 years and I just want them gone. And, even though some people may not believe it, ramshorn snails do indeed eat healthy green leaves. I know, because I have the issue. They eat holes in the leaves and then just continue to eat until a huge cavity type space is opened up and the leaf starts to die. They are also eat on the roots. I have, in the past week, had to pull my huge amazon sword out the substrate and out the top of the tank to pick the ramshorn snails off the root ball and out of the areas where the leaves start coming off the root ball. So regardless of what anyone thinks, they do in indeed eat healthy plants while letting the dead leaves, if there are any, just rot away.

I have been using the zucchini trick for close to 2 years now. It works to pick off the few that get on it. It does nothing for all those that don't. Like the ones devouring my amazon sword at the root level. Honestly, they don't eat leftover food or even a dead fish. All they want to eat are live plants. I have literally not seen them eat anything, even in the middle of the night holding a flash light to see with, have I ever seen the eating on anything other than my live plants. And the occasional few on a piece of zucchini.

I even started a snail tank last winter just to get them out of my 75 gallon. I had a 10 gallon tank with several hundred ramshorn snails in it. My son came home for Christmas and asked "mom....why is there a tank full of snails in that room?" Yes, folks, it is bad.......

 

[TC33]

I used Assassin snails a long time ago in a previous tank when I had a pest snails issue. I bought 4-5. They decimated the pest snails in no time at all. They also did not breed, but that could of been more luck that anything else.

You could get some assassins, let them do their job over a month or so, then give them to someone else.

I would not have them now as I do have other pet Nerite snails, but did not have that problem back then.

 

[julielynn47]

That was my plan on the assassin snails, let them do what they do and then give them away.
Maybe I would luck out and get all the same sex snails so no breeding LOL

 

[Fishfunn]

That was my plan on the assassin snails, let them do what they do and then give them away.
Maybe I would luck out and get all the same sex snails so no breeding LOL

They don't breed that well. They do not breed in large numbers like the pest snails. I had assassin snails, and they never bred.

 

[Magnum Man]

I am over feeding, as I have critters in the basement, & I started with 3 assassins, & now I literally have as many as I have pest snails

 

[Fishfunn]

I am over feeding, as I have critters in the basement, & I started with 3 assassins, & now I literally have as many as I have pest snails

I believe they breed to match the amount of food that is available to them.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I had a pond snail problem about 20 years ago. So I got 10 assassins. A couple of weeks later I got 6 more.

This was a few years later. And that is just the first tank/ it populated many more tanks.

I put some of the above into planted 15 gal. I sold that tank with all the contents and hardware. There were at least 50 assassins in it.

For the past almost 2 years I have been bringing 20 to 26 assassins to my monthly fish club meetings (August no meeting). These are put into the auction held at the end of each meeting.

I have also culled a few 100. Plus I have given away/traded a bunch also. Plus I have wiped out a bunch by accident over the years.

This

Assassin snail breeding​

Breeding assassin snails is just easy enough to be an enjoyable project for beginners, but just difficult enough to avoid ending up with another snail infestation. Even if you do end up with a larger snail population than you wanted, you'll usually be able to sell them pretty easily.

All you have to do in order to get your assassin snails breeding is get a group that's large enough to guarantee the presence of both males and females. It's not possible to tell the difference between the boys and girls visually in this snail species, so you just have to hope you get both!

Feed high-quality, nutrient-rich foods and make sure the water quality is always high. Adult assassin snails will take care of the rest and start producing egg sacs once they're sexually mature.

Assassin snail eggs are laid one at a time, totaling up to four per clutch. Baby assassin snails hatch after around two months, tiny but fully functional. They'll spend much of their early life hiding in the substrate and feeding on tiny edible particles, but will emerge to eat snails as soon as they're large enough.

from https://www.theshrimpfarm.com/posts/assassin-snail-care/
(This paper is somewhat old as the assassin has been renamed, Anentome helena where is was formerly Clea helena

Water parameters plus care and feeding will determine how they do. I have soft neutral pH water and mine reproduce like rabbits. I also fed them the pest snails from all my pleco growout tanks which were always well fed and supporting snails.

 

[Fishfunn]

I had a pond snail problem about 20 years ago. So I got 10 assassins. A couple of weeks later I got 6 more.

This was a few years later. And that is just the first tank/ it populated many more tanks.
View attachment 344896
View attachment 344897
I put some of the above into planted 15 gal. I sold that tank with all the contents and hardware. There were at least 50 assassins in it.

For the past almost 2 years I have been bringing 20 to 26 assassins to my monthly fish club meetings (August no meeting). These are put into the auction held at the end of each meeting.

I have also culled a few 100. Plus I have given away/traded a bunch also. Plus I have wiped out a bunch by accident over the years.

This


from https://www.theshrimpfarm.com/posts/assassin-snail-care/
(This paper is somewhat old as the assassin has been renamed, Anentome helena where is was formerly Clea helena

Water parameters plus care and feeding will determine how they do. I have soft neutral pH water and mine reproduce like rabbits. I also fed them the pest snails from all my pleco growout tanks which were always well fed and supporting snails.

I never overfeed my fish tanks that contain the assassin snails, so I guess that is why mine didn't breed.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Well, since I was breeding a lot of plecos, I was feeding a lot of babies. They need a lot of food and no matter how well one cleans such tanks, there is always some excess food the snails can get. That gave me the pest snails. This leaves one with two options, either kill the snails or use them as food for the assassins once they have done the job for which one acquired them.

I would say that the only live food I do is feeding the pest snails to the the assassins. I see it much like angel breeders who feed their culls to something. Or how about folks who keep puffers and feed them pest snails?

Finally. almost anybody with a planted tank has some familiarity with snails they never wanted? It isn't as bad as free duckweed, but it can be close. And then there is the cash selling assassins brings. It may not be a lot but it does help pay for a bit of one's fish hobby.

But when it comes to assassins and other inverts breeding, it isn't only food that matters, water parameters also count.