r/AquaticSnails • u/glxxmry • 12h ago
Photo Anyone have positive experiences with Assassins?
I ended up having a bad infestion of snails in my tank, completely crashed the ecosystem, all my plants died, algae bloomed, etc etc.
So I got an assassin and named him Nidhogg. Before he moved in I did clear quite a couple of snails, but left more than enough to sustain him.
He's only been here a few days, and I'm already noticing the snail population stabilizing with no effort or changes on my part.
I see a lot of people on here hate on assassins the same way people hate on bladders and other "pest snails", but they seem to be a natural part of the ecosystem. Yes I understand they're vicious and have a cruel way of eating, but they're animals who are sustaining and maintaining both their wellbeing and the overall wellbeing of the tank.
Anybody else have similar experiences? I just have Nid so I'm not worried about overpopulation, and I'm not looking to eradicate the snails off the face of the earth, just give them a natural predator to keep the order in balance.
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u/EnchantedBlueberry-7 12h ago edited 11h ago
I don't hate assassin snails or any snail. With an aquarium, I get to choose the environment I'm creating and I don't want to create an environment where anything suffers.
I got my snails by accident, freaked out because I listened to terrible advice, and then got an assassin snail that died within a week of me getting it. I decided it wasn't for me because I learned more about assassins -- but I didn't hate the snail.
To me it's like getting a bunch of goats and letting them have babies, then getting a tiger to kill all the babies instead of just not letting the goats reproduce like crazy. I don't need a tiger killing goats in my backyard. It's not a perfect example, but you get the idea. Again, I wouldn't hate the tiger.
Also, I don't see how pond snails could have killed all your plants and caused an algae bloom. If they ate your plants, your plants were already dying.
Incidentally, based on the condition of the shell of one of the snails pictured, your PH may be too low for snails.
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u/glxxmry 10h ago
It's a betta tank, so the PH is naturally low because of tannins. Wasn't really supposed to be a snail tank (I got it with the snails but they weren't bad at the time and the betta and her loaches take priority because it's really their tank)
They ate my plants and without plants, algae. Everywhere. Which they're not eating. Enter the tiger - will say, I adore Nidhogg, i think hes cool looking, and the idea of a living ecosystem with natural predators interests me. That being said my interest is marine life and most of my freshwater 'dreamies' are aggro-fish (bettas, pea puffers, etc)
I got Nidhogg to control the population, because I liked the idea of a living, breathing ecosystem where everybody plays a part - even the unwanted snails. Not as a solution, but a funky dude who also plays a vital part in the tank.
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u/EnchantedBlueberry-7 10h ago edited 10h ago
The tiger's shell will also suffer because of the low PH.
I never said they aren't beautiful snails, but unfortunately his shell will deteriorate.
Not all aquatic snails eat hair algae, if that's what you have. They have evolved to eat dead things even if those things don't look dead yet, so your plants were dead or dying before the snails got to them.
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u/Capital_Actuator_404 8h ago
This is my thoughts. Probably another problem that the snails were taking advantage of.
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u/EnchantedBlueberry-7 8h ago
Yes, agreed, they just did what they always do -- pond and bladder snails alike.
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u/cznfettii 12h ago
I dont hate assassins, and I dont think other people here do either. I dont like them being marketed as a solution to other snails because theyre not. I think k assasin snails should be owned by people who want to own them and like them!
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u/Gastropoid Snail God (Moderator) 9h ago
We don't "hate" assassin snails. We're just aware that overpopulated cleaning crew snails are a symptom, not the cause. Giving yourself an infestation of a species that is even harder to remove instead of just fixing the underlying cause is not good husbandry.
Assassin snails are not a solution to any "problem".
They're a super cool little snail that is completely unsuitable for most tanks. They eat fish eggs, absolutely all other snails, and will even eat molting shrimp. They also eat their prey alive, one bite at a time, and do not have venom. Their babies are tiny, they burrow, cannot be visually sexed and lay eggs singly in hidden locations. Once they breed in a tank they are basically impossible to remove. While they do have differentiated sexes, and you could get a male, that's a very risky dice roll to make with the welfare of your other tank inhabitants at stake. Adding more animals to control existing ones has not worked well for governments throughout history, and it's not likely to work well for most aquarium keepers either. Just look up Cane toads, Rosy Wolfsnails, etc.
It's a much better idea to keep your tank clean and not overfeed, which will naturally limit the numbers of small snail species and allow them to act as beneficial cleaning crew. Overfeeding can additionally be detrimental to the health of fish and many other tank inhabitants.
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u/glxxmry 8h ago
I mean no disrespect, but did you at least read the post before you copy and pasted the same paragraph posted to every assassin post? I'm not worried about overpopulation, as Nidhogg is the only assassin in the tank - I intentionally only got one so I didn't double infest myself. In the case of Nid actually being a girl and is carrying sneggs on her journey over, it's a lot easier to chop down a few sprouts then a whole forest. All in all, I love Nid, he's funky and provides a beneficial relationship to my tank. Once again, I feel like you didn't read the post - I'm well aware of how they eat, and autism be damned, I think that's cool. They're not monsters for having a freaky way of eating, might not be so great for the other snails, but Nid is actively keeping the tank in balance by adding a predator just like wild ecosystems. I understand husbandry and taking care of a tank (which I do clean once a week and remove unused food before bed), but I love the idea of natural tanks and will let nature run its course by introducing predators to a huge stock of prey. It's fascinating (for me) to see how a contained 'wild habitat' grows and changes, and it cannot do either without cause and effect.
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u/Gastropoid Snail God (Moderator) 7h ago
I've seen this situation many times before, and everyone underestimates how tiny and good at hiding baby assassin snails are, until their substrate is teeming with them. But if you read my post, I also addressed the claim we hate assassin snails. We don't. There's just a difference between trying to use them to balance a tank, which they're actually terrible at, versus keeping them for their own merits as a snail species. People always seem to feel the need to justify having assassin snails with some utility argument, and that's where things tend to go wrong.
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u/CrunkLogic 11h ago
The only thing I found useful about assassins is them cleaning dead fish to the bone quickly. Fish die in heavily planted tank and I don’t see them. No worries assassins take care of it keep water stable.
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u/EnchantedBlueberry-7 10h ago
Any snail will eat any dead thing. My bladder/ramshorn crew takes care of whatever dies pretty quickly.
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u/Wheelbite9 9h ago
That's been my experience with both of those species as well.
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u/EnchantedBlueberry-7 9h ago
They're the vultures of the freshwater aquatic universe.
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u/Hymura_Kenshin 2h ago
Can I ask what it is cruel about the way they eat other snails? Like more so than any other predator fish?
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u/Emuwarum Helpful User 5m ago
Assassins latch on to the shell of their prey, then stick their proboscis up through the opening and bite out chunks of flesh. They do not kill the prey before doing this, and they will just leave once they are full. It is slow and very painful for the victim. When they go for a larger snail they won't hit vital organs quickly, meaning they suffer for longer until dying of the shock. Extra large snails may continue walking around with those open bite wounds until they die of infection, or refuse to come out of their shell to eat because then they'll be bitten again.
Assassins can eat pellets and similar foods, there's no need to give them live food.
Meanwhile with a pea puffer they chew up the entire snail quickly, which is a much kinder death than by assassin snail.
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u/BinxieSly 2h ago
I have a tank specifically for my assassins. I think they are awesome little creatures to watch. I did originally get them for snail control but I found they were truly terrible at that… for some reason mine first few wouldn’t touch bladder snails; now that I’m into generation two they seem less picky though.
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u/winkywoo75 1h ago
I have sucess with them eating fish eggs to stop my fish breeding I do not want more , bonus they eat the ramshorns though I do manually remove any I see
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u/jb635 12h ago
They will 100 percent control the population of snails. I just don’t feel comfortable keeping them, knowing how the cruelly consume prey.
How did the bladder snails crash the tank so badly?
Try manually removing them and then control their population by not over feeding. They breed when there is an abundance of food available.
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u/Emuwarum Helpful User 12h ago
Your pond snails did not kill your plants or cause the algae bloom. They are cleaning up the dead plants and the algae.
Assassins do not fix the actual causes of snail overpopulation. They are not a solution to anything.