Nerite and assassin snail

Hello,

Looking for some advise. I just moved my plants and inhabitants from a 20 gal long to a 50 gal long tank. My assassin snail is still in my 20 gal tank. I would like to have about 4-5 horned nerites in my 50 gal tank. What is the probability my assassin will eat my nerites if I put them both in the 50 gal tank?

I bought the assassin to get rid of some pest snails. Turned out I bought a "pregnant" female and soon had about 50 of these snails that I rehomed to one of my stock ponds. I am hoping to never have an issue with pest snails again, but I like the little guy and would like to keep him too.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

If you have no "pest" snails in the new tank for him I fear the assassin will target the nerites. It may be difficult for him to eat one but I don't think it would be impossible. Personally I wouldn't take the chance. If you are going to keep the 20 gallon running it might be best to just leave him there.

BTW: If you don't have pest snails Assassins love freeze dried blood worms. The most difficult part of feeding them is getting them to stay at the bottom of the tank. I put them in a piece of loosely woven netting and weight it down so it sits on the bottom of the tank for mine. This is how I feed FDBW to my corys too. They love them.

 

Thank you for your reply. It is what I feared. I am debating on keeping the 20 gal going (we live in a very small place right now @ 700 sq ft). But I think I can convince my hubby that I need a quarantine tank or possibly a grow out tank for my pandy cory fry.

Before I had a pest snail problem, I fed my assassin (we named it Mario) frozen blood worms. I would just put some next to him when I saw him out and about. He loved them! Now I just see snail shells and know he is well fed.

Thanks for the advise!

 

If you don't want to get over run with cory fry you may want to consider getting a mystery snail. I started with one. She started laying eggs. I allowed one clutch to hatch. I now have at least 40. I also have at least 25 bronze corys. I probably have more than that. They move too fast to get an accurate head count. The mystery snails love cory eggs. Before I got the mystery snails I scraped cory eggs off the glass almost daily to make it easier for the fish to eat them. The snails do it now. They keep the inside of my glass almost spotless.

The good thing about mystery snails is you can control the numbers simply by removing clutches of eggs. They are easy to see and easy to remove. Nerites are great cleaners but if you have females be prepared for little white eggs plastered all over that great looking piece of driftwood I see in your tank. From all I've read they stick like super glue so are very difficult to remove.

Keep in mind both nerites and mystery snails have been known to go on walkabouts. Thankfully so far none of mine have left the tank they are in although it would be easy to do. Other folks aren't as fortunate. They have found their snails a long way away from the tank just wandering around

 

Yeah, I read that somewhere too. I really just want to control any algae that might rear it's head. My 20 gal long got some BBA that I could not control. In hind sight I think that I may have let the plants grow wild b/c I was wanting a good crop to seed my 50 gal tank so I didn't thin them out when I should have. I read nerites were good at controlling algae and that they would not breed in freshwater so I thought they would be a good match; your comment on eggs makes me wonder. I don't have a cover, so that would be a concern.

We are blessed to live on a 60 acre piece of land that is covered with oak. When we had the ice storm in Feb, a couple of trees were downed, so we had a great pick of wood to use. My husband cut it for me and then used his rotor tool to cut the groove in it. The corys love it!

If you want some and are willing to pay for shipping we would be happy to get some to you. We live in Central Texas, so you could figure what it would cost you.

 

Yeah, I read that somewhere too. I really just want to control any algae that might rear it's head. My 20 gal long got some BBA that I could not control. In hind sight I think that I may have let the plants grow wild b/c I was wanting a good crop to seed my 50 gal tank so I didn't thin them out when I should have. I read nerites were good at controlling algae and that they would not breed in freshwater so I thought they would be a good match; your comment on eggs makes me wonder. I don't have a cover, so that would be a concern.

We are blessed to live on a 60 acre piece of land that is covered with oak. When we had the ice storm in Feb, a couple of trees were downed, so we had a great pick of wood to use. My husband cut it for me and then used his rotor tool to cut the groove in it. The corys love it!

If you want some and are willing to pay for shipping we would be happy to get some to you. We live in Central Texas, so you could figure what it would cost you.

Thank you for the offer. Actually we live out in the boondocks here in Arkansas so wood/driftwood is easy to come by. I also keep my eyes open for interesting pieces when we take the boat out.

Black Beard is the worst algae there is to deal with. I battled it for quite a while. I finally managed to get a siamese algae eater and he took care of it for me. Snails work well for lots of different kinds of algae. As far as I know there is no snail that will touch black beard.

 

Thank you for the offer. Actually we live out in the boondocks here in Arkansas so wood/driftwood is easy to come by. I also keep my eyes open for interesting pieces when we take the boat out.

Black Beard is the worst algae there is to deal with. I battled it for quite a while. I finally managed to get a siamese algae eater and he took care of it for me. Snails work well for lots of different kinds of algae. As far as I know there is no snail that will touch black beard.

I though about the Siamese algae eater, but I heard they can be really aggressive. Would hate to do that to my already timid Ember Tetras. I bleached everything before I added them to my new tank. I am hoping this takes care of it. I also heard Amano Shrimp will eat BBA unless it has been calcified (I don't know how that happens). I put the Amano in first and didn't feed them and they seemed to take care of any of the dead stuff still hanging on the plants. So maybe their appetite was awakened for it - hopefully.

 

I though about the Siamese algae eater, but I heard they can be really aggressive. Would hate to do that to my already timid Ember Tetras. I bleached everything before I added them to my new tank. I am hoping this takes care of it. I also heard Amano Shrimp will eat BBA unless it has been calcified (I don't know how that happens). I put the Amano in first and didn't feed them and they seemed to take care of any of the dead stuff still hanging on the plants. So maybe their appetite was awakened for it - hopefully.

I think what folks are talking about is a Chinese Algae Eater. They are known to get aggressive and also get bigger than a Siamese Algae Eater. I too have heard that Amano shrimp will eat it. It's good they helped you out. Sam, my SAE is full grown now and is getting a bit lazy when it comes to algae but when it was young he did a great job of almost eradicating it. Between Sam and all the mystery snails my tank stays pretty well algae free.

Before the BBA my tanks actually seldom ever had any kind of algae. Sometimes I wish I had never decided to switch to live plants. Before then I never had to deal with algae or ramshorn snails. Oh well, at least I learned some snails are useful and are fun to watch.

 

I think what folks are talking about is a Chinese Algae Eater. They are known to get aggressive and also get bigger than a Siamese Algae Eater. I too have heard that Amano shrimp will eat it. It's good they helped you out. Sam, my SAE is full grown now and is getting a bit lazy when it comes to algae but when it was young he did a great job of almost eradicating it. Between Sam and all the mystery snails my tank stays pretty well algae free.

Before the BBA my tanks actually seldom ever had any kind of algae. Sometimes I wish I had never decided to switch to live plants. Before then I never had to deal with algae or ramshorn snails. Oh well, at least I learned some snails are useful and are fun to watch.

I find the live plants are the most challenging in the hobby. I love the husbandry of it all. Right now, though, I wake up in the mornings to my monte carlo uprooted by my corys b/c they are rummaging at night. This morning I had a nice beautiful green cloud floating around the tank. Need to find a way to anchor it until it gets rooted in place.

 

Corys are industrious little vacuum cleaners. If it ain't nailed down they are gonna move it. In my humble opinion no tank is complete until corys are added. If someone is looking for something to clean up food that makes it past the other fish and hits the bottom corys are gonna find it and clean it up. They are the roomba of the aquarium world. Of course we can't expect them to thrive on just left overs. They also need food specifically for them dropped in at night.

 

Corys are industrious little vacuum cleaners. If it ain't nailed down they are gonna move it. In my humble opinion no tank is complete until corys are added. If someone is looking for something to clean up food that makes it past the other fish and hits the bottom corys are gonna find it and clean it up. They are the roomba of the aquarium world. Of course we can't expect them to thrive on just left overs. They also need food specifically for them dropped in at night.

I agree. I LOVE my corys. They are so entertaining!

 

If I could only have one type of fish it would be corys.

 

If I could only have one type of fish it would be corys.

Me too. I built my new tank around their needs!

 

If I could only have one type of fish it would be corys.

Same here. I love my little corys. It is really good to see you. I've been wondering where you got off to.