# Will assassin snails really do their job?



## battered (Jan 1, 2012)

I recently found a couple of tiny pond snails in my 10 gallon tank. If I add an assassin snail to it, will it really be able to find these snails and eat them? It just seems like the chances of the one snail finding another, tiny snail (I had to look up close to confirm what I had in my tank was a snail) are tiny.

Also, will an assassin snail survive in my relatively soft water? Will the calcium content from the flourish comprehensive I use help it at all? If not, is there a simple solution for the snail (without doing any drastic changes to the water - I don't want to risk hurting the fish)?


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## NJAquaBarren (Sep 16, 2009)

Yes and yes. They are well named.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

How many pond snails? If you have a few and don't overfeed, you won't get many more. If you get assassins, they will eat a few snails in a matter of days then you have to keep feeding the assassins either more snails, blood worms or something. If you have a fair amount of pond snails, get 1 assassin. People make that mistake in buying a wackload of assassins to get rid of a few ponds snails but then what are the assassins supposed to eat?

Be aware, they can on rare occasion eat a shrimp that just molted too if they deep it an easy meal and it sucks if its a $30 SSS flowerhead.


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## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Can't say how they will fare in your tank but they will do the job. Even tiny snails can't hide. My tank (75g) was over run with tiny ramhorn and MTS so I added 10 assassins. Within a couple months I had to remove the assassins because they all but emptied my big tank of good snails. I had to add more MTS from my other tank to build back up the population. I added back two assassins to help maintain.


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## FriendsNotFood (Sep 21, 2010)

My lazy assassins wouldn't eat anything smaller than a quarter of an inch and it took them forever to eat anything... They completely ignored baby pond snails and just hung out at the top of the tank or in the sand. I ended up nuking my tank and tearing it apart to get rid of snails. Maybe they would have eaten some snails if I gave them more than a couple months to do so but I didn't have the patience. My experience seems to be an exception though.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Mine have all decimated my pond snail problem is 6 tanks. My roomie had a tank that he let go, didn't change water on, and its loaded with pond snails, like thousands, so we put all the assassins in there. They can breed and if we can a few locally, cool, if the pond snails get out of control in a tank again, can pull one out and put it in a tank to do its job and then go back. I only started with 3 and ended up with 10 or 11. Their may be more hiding in a tank still. They like to burrow sometimes and stay hidden for weeks or months sometimes I've found. I even cleaned out a tank of its substrate, put it in a plastic bag, drained but not fully dried for about 3 months, my roomie setup another tank and used that substrate, out comes pond snails and an assassin.


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## Thepeak12 (Dec 4, 2011)

I had 200 snails in my 29 gallon tank, and after putting 6 assassin snails in there, within 2 and a half months they were nearly gone. So yes, they do the job quite well.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

Some people have had assassins that turn vegan, others have had assassins that clear out the pest snail population... and then go for shrimp.


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## Redflame (Dec 4, 2011)

My assassins are brutal, I bought what was supposed to be a group of 13 pink ramshorns, turned out a few were pinkish, some orange and some browns. I through 6 in my assassin tank and within a minute the first was attacked, then another jumped in and another until four assassins ganged up on a a quarter sized ramshorn. (I have a video but its like 45 minutes) then other assassins started picking off the other ramshorns all comparable in size. I thought the ramshorns would last at least a week in the tank but they were all gone about an hour later.


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## thefisherman (Oct 15, 2011)

i think my assassins are decendants of ghandi's... pest snail population is at an all time high 


Sent from my iPhone


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