# Pond Snails I choose you!



## cantsay39 (Jun 10, 2011)

assassin snails do you not worry about the shrimps?? because my shrimps like hover on the snails..


----------



## cjj (Sep 11, 2012)

cantsay39 said:


> assassin snails do you not worry about the shrimps?? because my shrimps like hover on the snails..


assassin snails eat shrimp?


----------



## cantsay39 (Jun 10, 2011)

well well some say it's ok but some says they sting the shrimps and eat em... who knows you want to try


----------



## Zenzu (Mar 23, 2012)

I've seen my assassin snail capture a shrimp and eat it.


----------



## Knotyoureality (Aug 3, 2012)

I've been experimenting with pond snail populations in my planted bowls and discovered a rather interesting affect..


Most folks manually remove the largest snails. Makes sense, they're the easiest to see and pull and the most visually offensive. However, when the snail population is heavily weighted to very young snails, they continue to populate like mad. If you leave the largest snails and concentrate on removing the smaller ones, the large ones stop breeding as fast. 

I put together a 3g planted vase *trying* to produce tons of pond snails for assassin chow. I pulled a mix of snails from my tanks to populate it, pulling small to medium sized snails to feed the assassins. As the average size of the snails increased, the rate of new hatchings slowed. In fact, despite heavy feeding and excellent water parameters--I've not had a snail hatching in two months. Looking to get more babies, I added floaters from my main tanks with egg masses on them and not only didn't get any new hatching--I caught the older snails munching down on the eggs. 

Took a look at my main tanks (37g, 10g) and realized my pattern of leaving larger snails, but pulling small ones (to populate planted vases, feed my rams, etc) had inadvertantly had the same affect: a stable population of mature pond snails with very rare hatchings. 

A test vase doing the opposite--seeding it with babies and tiny snails and removing the largest ones as they grew gave the opposite affect--more and more babies being produced til the tank was crawling with 'em.


----------



## SpecGrrl (Jul 26, 2012)

Knotyoureality said:


> I've been experimenting with pond snail populations in my planted bowls and discovered a rather interesting affect..
> 
> 
> Most folks manually remove the largest snails. Makes sense, they're the easiest to see and pull and the most visually offensive. However, when the snail population is heavily weighted to very young snails, they continue to populate like mad. If you leave the largest snails and concentrate on removing the smaller ones, the large ones stop breeding as fast.
> ...


Oh wow!

I have noticed similar experience in my ramshorn pondsnails tank-- I took out a decoration that was covered with smaller snails and put it in my assassin tank.

Now only 3 ramshorns in the 2.5.

I feel bad that I threw my big pondsnails into the assassin tank.


----------



## SpecGrrl (Jul 26, 2012)

cjj said:


> So I had a hydra problem and a pond snail problem. I stopped feeding the shrimp (20 shrimp 55g tank) to hopefully cut down on the hydras but then something really interesting started happening. I noticed small pond snails floating randomly getting tossed around by the water and I couldnt figure out why so I watched (about 2 hrs) and my pond snails are eating the hydras.
> 
> Usually the pond snail 1-2 mm goes over the 1 mm hydra and about half the time the snail disengages from the glass and floats around usually taking the hydra with it. The other half the pond snail just keeps going consuming the hydra. I also have a large pond snail about half an inch that just bulldozes a path through them.
> 
> In the last 3-4 days the hydra population has been devastated down to about 1-5%. So the pond snails will be staying until I decide to get assassin snails  But until then my hats off to you pond snails (numbering somewhere around 50 atm).


Good for team pond snail!

I went ahead and FenBenned my 2.5.

In the Spec V, the hydra come and go-- maybe my snails are eating them!


----------



## garfieldnfish (Sep 25, 2010)

I have MTSs and assassin snails in one tank. While the assassins eat large MTSs they will bypass smaller ones. I believe they leave them for their own off spring. My assassins breed in this tank but lately I find less and less baby assassins. I found planaria to be the problem as they seem to eat the assassin snail eggs. I cannot fight the planaria as all of the recommendations usually kill snails as well. 
But I like the idea of pond snails killing hydra. I wish we could find a cure for all (not meant sarcastically, but really) of the bugs that ail us


----------



## chou (Feb 23, 2012)

Zenzu said:


> I've seen my assassin snail capture a shrimp and eat it.


and that is why i'm removing them all out of my tank of PFR's. My figure-8 puffer is so happy and fat right now don't got a name for him yet. my gf wanted to name him "octopus" i said nope. what you guys thinK? haha:icon_redf


----------



## Jdiesels (Mar 20, 2013)

SpecGrrl said:


> Good for team pond snail!
> 
> I went ahead and FenBenned my 2.5.
> 
> In the Spec V, the hydra come and go-- maybe my snails are eating them!


Did you notice any snail deaths? What size doses did you do?


DBP Member 003


----------



## Oceangirl (Feb 5, 2013)

There is a picture floating around on here of a Assassin snail eating an shrimp. I remember it was a member here that has the shrimp tank on his desk and looked over and saw the attack happen.


----------



## Nathan.G (Aug 4, 2014)

i realize this is an older thread but this just gave me great info as i have pond snail in my daughters tank that i feed to my assn. as will as my D.puffer. and now i have hydra in a small tank i use for my barried cherries. and I'm going to add the biggest pond snail to help so thank u!


----------

