Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: jesnon on June 04, 2013, 10:23:00 AM
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Right... I knew this time would come eventually! But yesterday I got back from a loooong stint at work and spotted a new resident in my tank... a teeny tiny snail making its way across my glass. I suspect he came with my new plants, despite the fact that I soaked them with daily water changes for over a week in a bucket!?
Anyway snail has now disappeared again in the light of day.
My question is are all snails bad? And should I have killed it when I got the chance?
It's just... I don't really like killing anything really :-[But I have seen horror stories about snail infestations so maybe I missed my chance to act... :-\
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Same happened to me in my 180ltr after I added plants. Once the population of snails got to 50 (that I could readily count) I added 6 Assassin Snails. The pond snail population has been cut right down to at best 10 over a few weeks. They will eat one a day and bury themselves somewhere and "go to sleep". I now look at the Pond Snails as "live food" and leave them alone for the Assassins to feed off.
When the pond snails breed (and they will) you could find yourself having an explosion, if you do not actively seek out egg sacks and destroy them, along with any infant snails you can see.
The alternative to killing them is to grab an Assassin snail or two and pop them in. Assassin's don't breed like the pest snails do (which can switch gender and breed readily). Assassins are gender based and can't switch. Unlike pest snails, if you do happen to get baby Assassin's they can be sold on quite readily.
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Snail lovers - look away now!
I catch the snails, squash them and drop them back in - the fish love them.
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Thanks for your posts guys... since my tank is so small it would be pretty bad news if my snails started overpopulating!
So... today at feeding time (and my endlers were pretty hungry, since I'd been at work for 38 hours so they'd had two full fasting days) I saw my endlers harassing.... yup, another snail! So I braved it, turned all of the electrics off and squashed it against the glass. My endlers swarmed around it and it was eaten in seconds! I'm really really hoping that this snail was on his lonesome, but well... I now know that they're a bit of an endler delicacy so will try to remember that to get rid of the guilt of killing them!
I do quite like the idea of having an assassin snail though, but I guess my tank is probably populated enough currently! I saw another shrimp shell earlier so one of my shrimps is currently in hiding... I really want to see some little shrimpy babies!
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Snails aren't bad in themselves, it's just that they overpopulate the tank. But the main cause of tons of snails is overfeeding the fish. I used to fight a losing battle against those little flat spirals till I discovered about over feeding. I cut down on the food and now, although i do still have them, there aren't nearly so many.
And I crush them when I see them on the glass.
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I do quite like the idea of having an assassin snail though, but I guess my tank is probably populated enough currently!
You would be perfectly ok as Assassins (or other types of "nice" snails) are treated much like Shrimp for bio-loading. Their impact is very small as they are eating what is already in the tank. It's always an option you can turn to later if you don't think you need/want to at the moment.
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Hi Jesnon,
There have been a few reports that Assassin snails eat small type of shrimps (cherries in particular in those reports). The Assassins eat pest snails of a certain size – they do not bother with the little ones (too much work?) and then turn onto shrimps of a suitable size if there are any present. One of the PFK issues had an article on this. In the tank size of yours, I would not introduce more than one Assassin – if any... Do google the issue – you will be able to make your own mind on the advantages or disadvantages.
On the side note – your “pale” cherry shrimp is a boy and the colourful ones are girls. It is necessary to have a “pale” shrimp if you want them to have babies. And another thing- the bioload of cherry shrimps is so negligible that you should not be worried if your population increases by a few times...
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Thanks for your posts guys. And Melanie thank you for the warning on assassins eating shrimps... snails eating shrimps - I wouldn't have even thought to worry about that! I'll leave my tank be for the time being and take further steps if need be if I see another snail. I may have gotten lucky and the snail I squashed earlier could have been the same snail I saw last night and the only one in my tank... fingers crossed!
And thank you RE: shrimp bioload. I was worried I might get to a stage where I have too many shrimp and need to ship some off to new homes, but hopefully in that case I won't! I'm hoping they breed mainly because I think it would be cute to see some shrimp babies more than anything else ha, but I've also read that if they're 'happy' then they're very likely to breed, so that would be a nice sign they're happy in their new home. I have noticed the shrimps have really reddened up in the last week or so too (well apart from the boy!) so we'll see if I get any baby shrimps some time down the line
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There have been a few reports that Assassin snails eat small type of shrimps (cherries in particular in those reports). The Assassins eat pest snails of a certain size – they do not bother with the little ones (too much work?) and then turn onto shrimps of a suitable size if there are any present.
Never seen anything of that sort, Assassins can't outrun a Shrimp so I don't see how it's possible unless the Shrimp was already dead/dying.
One of the PFK issues had an article on this.
Please link to the article, it would be in interesting read that one.
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Hi all,
Tigzfish – I do feel interrogated, which feels rather strange after more than 25 years in fishkeeping (albeit, with lengthy breaks...) :D
So, Interrogation Officer, in my defence, I can report the following:
PFK article is in February 2013 issue, page 108.
Googling the question, you may find that there are reports on instances of Assassins eating dwarf shrimp. Not everybody experience that but I am under the impression that the smaller the tank the higher is the risk. As this site does not allow references to other forums, I am afraid, Officer, you need to do your own “googling”.
The last (not the least) is a video of a cherry shrimp in a vulnerable state of moulting – being caught and eaten by an Assassin snail (Jesnon, this is a fairly disturbing video – even moulting itself does not look that pleasant – I braced myself watching it – but unfortunately, this is a truth of nature).
Here it goes: #Invalid YouTube Link include https#
I hope I covered my point of view well... Remaining at your mercy.... :)
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Thanks for the warning Melanie - think I will avoid the video!
Unfortunately I found another snail earlier just after doing a water change and tank clean. It was even smaller than the last and well... didn't last long! I'll see what happens in my battle against the snails, but may need to start taking more active action!
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Hi Jesnon,
Unpleasant as it is, I think just crushing the pest snails against the glass will possibly be a better option for your little tank... Your endlers will love them as a natural food supplement.... :)
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Tigzfish – I do feel interrogated, which feels rather strange after more than 25 years in fishkeeping (albeit, with lengthy breaks...) :D
So, Interrogation Officer, in my defence, I can report the following:
PFK article is in February 2013 issue, page 108.
Your alleged experience bears no relevance to my question. If I am unable to see (or "google") a citation of evidence for something I do not understand, I will ask to see it. Simple, and that is exactly what I did. This 'forum' is a place to both seek and offer answers. I will be sourcing the PFK article because it interests me. Your remarks make it glaringly obvious you dislike me (for whatever reason), but I really do not care.
** edit to add **
The video is quite good, thank you.
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Hey TigzFish...what's happened? Why are you showing as a guest? I hope you haven't left the forum? ???
Resa
:)
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Me too!
Resuming normal service...... squashing a snail against the glass is a lot kinder than letting an Assassin snail eat it ( :P) - so don't feel too guilty, Jesnon. Rather, view it as an act of kindness ;)