Considering buying an assassin snail, few questions :)

6856 Views 10 Replies 5 Participants Last post by mordalphus, Jan 2, 2011

klinds89

Discussion Starter · Jan 2, 2011

First off, I'd like to say I'm going to have to order this little guy online since my LPS doesn't carry them - or so I think.

1- I had a nerite snail and two mystery snails in my 10 gallon and they worked wonderful algae wise. Sadly, my power head and filter sucked the daylight out of them within about two months (my strainer on my filter is easily knocked off when they would clean it). My largest mystery snail just died last night. If I acquire an assassin, can it be kept with nerites? I don't want him eating on his mates =S.

2-If they do work out, does he eat algae at all? Or can I use the crab pellets I give my RCS which have a meat content? Or at least sinking fish pellets?

3- What is a good/well known site for buying assassins? And typical prices? I'm probably going to get two or three- my annoying snail population is RIDICULOUS. It doesn't bother me until I turn the tank light on and an army is on the front glass.

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mordalphus

· #2 · Jan 2, 2011

1) they eat nerites and mystery snails too... Or at least kill them and eat PART of them.

2) they dont eat any algae, but they eat meaty stuff (like snails! bloodworms, etc)

3) the SnS here is a great place to find livestock!

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klinds89

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jan 2, 2011

I looked up if nerites have a death wish- and said they are too big, at least zebras which i had, to be eaten only bc they are the larger of the nerites.

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mordalphus

· #4 · Jan 2, 2011

my assassins killed japanese trapdoor snails which were at least 3 times larger than them.

and i've heard many times they'll eat nerites once they run out of MTS and ramshorns

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klinds89

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 2, 2011

that sucks

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tuffgong

· #6 · Jan 2, 2011

I think you will be fine in the long run. Assassins snails kill relatively slowly, so as the pest snail load in your tank diminishes you can remove the assassins and sell them or whatever. Another alternative would be to breed pest snails in another container to keep your assassins happy.

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klinds89

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jan 2, 2011

yea, i have a lot of pesty snails. i just ordered some zebra nerites to get my algae taken care of. im deff considering the assassins

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boringname

· #8 · Jan 2, 2011

"3- What is a good/well known site for buying assassins? And typical prices? I'm probably going to get two or three- my annoying snail population is RIDICULOUS. It doesn't bother me until I turn the tank light on and an army is on the front glass."

Assasins have a rep for ganging up to kill larger snails so buying more only increases the chances that it will kill the larger snails.

I bought just one assassin for that reason. I've only had him for a week so I don't know if he's going to eventually kill my mystery snail. I've only seen him eat one snail so far, he's sort of odd and unpredictable. As long as he keeps the pond snail and MTS populations down in the long run I'm happy.

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klinds89

Discussion Starter · #9 · Jan 2, 2011

id only have like 2 snails max, so i dont think itd be a big amount to kill a zebra nerite? I ordered 3 zebras tonight, so ill get 1-2 assassins later on

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Eden Marel

· #10 · Jan 2, 2011

Or you can give away your pest snails to people... *hint hint* :icon_wink

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mordalphus

· #11 · Jan 2, 2011

Oh, I have 5 assassins in a 20g with cherry shrimp. I forget to drop snails in there for them sometimes, and they'll take down a shrimp. If I want to watch them eat a snail, I just go grab a medium sized ramshorn and toss it into the tank. They come running(?) from each direction and descend like hungry vultures. The poor ramshorn doesn't have a chance. It's funny to because there's two dominant snails and they'll push their way right into the ramshorn, shoving the others away.

But yeah, when they took down my huge trapdoor snails it was all of them on one, and they didn't even finish their meals, they left the bodies half-eaten inside of the shells and the resulting quickly-fouled water destroyed my RCS colony.

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