Snail eating tankmates for Agassizii

[RyanJMaurer]

I have a pair of Flame\Fire Red agassizii coming next week and the heavily planted tank I will be putting them in now has a thriving you snail population. Only a few of the snails are big enough to really see their shells but there are lots of little tiny ones stuck to the glass and plants (and thats only the ones I can see) I assume my Agassizii's wont eat these tiny snails and I would like to add some tankmates to help keep the population under control, I don't mind a few snails but don't want to be completely overrun.

I want to breed the apisto's so if anyone can suggest a few tankmates that wont get in the way of that it would be great, otherwise I can look at getting Assasin snails or trapping the current ones overnight to feed to my clown loaches in my other tank in the morning.

 

[Mike Wise]

"A breeding tank is not a community tank." (Where have I read that before??). I would opt for your last option: collection, removal and feeding to your loaches. Macmasteri-group species are known to crush snail shells by ramming them against something hard and then eating the meat. I once had Rainbow cichlids (Archocentrus multispinosus) that happily ate any snails they could grab. I would use them to get rid of excess snails in breeding tanks once I removed the apistos. Once I missed a female A. cacatuoides. She was hiding eggs. I came down to the fish room one day to find a full grown 5"/12cm Rainbow male plastered to the upper part of the tank with this little 1½"/3.5cm female cacatuoides beating the snot of him! Quickly saved him from her onslaught.

 

[JG]

Once I missed a female A. cacatuoides. She was hiding eggs. I came down to the fish room one day to find a full grown 5"/12cm Rainbow male plastered to the upper part of the tank with this little 1½"/3.5cm female cacatuoides beating the snot of him! Quickly saved him from her onslaught.

Too funny! I'd say she was ranked quite high on the pound-for-pound rankings.

 

[danbb]

Don't use assassin snails if you want to breed them, in the same time. You can use assassins, they are the best in eating snails, but there is a chance you can't find all of them when you want to remove them (some get bury in the sand for some time).

 

[Culprit]

I used a pea puffer to completely rid my 29g of those micro sideways ramshorns .

 

[jumpmaster]

If you have a snail problem, then chances are that you are over feeding. Snails in a tank are a good thing. The play an important part of your tank's cycle of life and are great indicators of problems.

 

[baby chaos]

tell me more jumpmaster. i agree that snails are an important element of any natural fishy ecosystem, but i'd like to hear more on the "indicator of problems" point you make - would you kindly elucidate from your own experiences? many thanks bc

 

[jumpmaster]

First of all, if you are over feeding they will have a tendency to reproduce like ...well .. snails. The rest I know is theoretical and, luckily, not based on personal experiences.

 

[rob the dwarf cichlid fan]

Ive got assassin snails in with my apistos and dont cause any problems. Got ride of the nuisance snails. And my apistos are breeding with no probs.

 

[ErtyJr]

First off mike is right, a community tank isn't a breeding tank. But in saying that I am the worst offender of that so I can't speak much on it. Although I am currently raising my last batch of fry in the community tank. After this I will have a breeding tank setup so I will no longer be breaking the gospel according to mike!

That being said, ANYTHING, that will eat a snail, will, if the opportunity arises, eat fry or the eggs. Especially any fish. I do have assassin snails in my tank and also have had two batches of fry in that same tank, but I'm sure if at any point an assassin could get at the eggs or fry, he would.

The best option overall, is to trap and remove, and figure out why they are multiplying so quickly. In my tank I know i am overfeeding, because of fry, and I know that caused a snail population boom. So since I knew I was overfeeding, and would continue to do so, I opted for the safest tank mate I could.

Your best options for tank mates are assassin snails. As mentioned before I would rank a pea puffer second, but you run the risk of having all your adults fins torn up.

 

[jumpmaster]

Comments tempted, since I missed something.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
"Your best options for tank mates are assassin snails".
I've never had any joy with Assassin Snails (Clea (Anentome) helena). They've started OK both times I've had them, and I've seen them for a couple of weeks, but after that they disappear, and some time later I find the empty shells with eroded shell spirals. I always have plenty of other snails, although the Physa and Ramshorn snails never get very big and always show some shell erosion.

After talking to other keepers the common issue in failure seems to be water hardness, and contrary to some reports on the WWW, they don't do well long term unless they are in hard water.

cheers Darrel

 

[ErtyJr]

Hi all,
"Your best options for tank mates are assassin snails".
I've never had any joy with Assassin Snails (Clea (Anentome) helena). They've started OK both times I've had them, and I've seen them for a couple of weeks, but after that they disappear, and some time later I find the empty shells with eroded shell spirals. I always have plenty of other snails, although the Physa and Ramshorn snails never get very big and always show some shell erosion.

After talking to other keepers the common issue in failure seems to be water hardness, and contrary to some reports on the WWW, they don't do well long term unless they are in hard water.

cheers Darrel

Hm odd. I have had mine about two months and they still actively hunt and are doing well. I only keep 1-2 in a tank though. Perhaps that helps?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
"I have had mine about two months and they still actively hunt and are doing well. I only keep 1-2 in a tank though. Perhaps that helps?"

Sounds promising, please keep us informed. I'll be interested to see what happens long term.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a food or water quality issue in my case, but there might well be other factors that I haven't factored in.

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

Erty what is the Ca+Mg hardness (GH) in your tank with Assassins? It's possible they're getting the Ca and Mg they need from food even if there's not much in the water. IME pond snails (Lymnaea and Physa) are the most tolerant snails in very soft water. They can grow OK in tanks with 1 dGH where Planorbis ramshorns get paper-thin and eroded.

 

[ErtyJr]

My tank is infested with pond snails. My GH is 5 I believe and KH was between 1-2 if I recall correctly. I know they were both pretty low but gh was not as low as I wanted.

Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0 (I don't mistest, I have duckweed, I know my test works I get readings on other tanks but not this one) ph is 6.5, I dose excel and occasionally flourish, but not too often. I have flourish root tabs, and heavily planted.

 

[gerald]

GH = 5 ought to be plenty of hardness for assassin snails (assuming reasonable amounts of both Ca and Mg). I'm guessing Darrel's tank where assassins did not survive long was probably around 2 dGH (35 mg/L) or less; is that right Darrel?

My GH is 5 I believe and KH was between 1-2 if I recall correctly. I know they were both pretty low but gh was not as low as I wanted.

 

[ErtyJr]

I thought gh not only calculates things that raise ph but also things that lower such as salts. I thought kh is the one that matters and what decides if water is soft or hard. I use ro water and the only reason I have a 5 is because I add a ph 6.5 buffer. Nothing else is added and before hand they are both below 1

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
" I'm guessing Darrel's tank where assassins did not survive long was probably around 2 dGH (35 mg/L) or less; is that right Darrel?"

I don't actually know, but I would think that is probably in the right ball park. The only parameter I measure is conductivity, and I keep that at about 100 microS. Our tap water is good quality, but straight out of a deep limestone aquifer and hard (about 18dKH). I usually just cut the rain-water with a little splash of tap water in the winter, and a dash of DI water in the summer, to maintain the tank somewhere in the range 80 - 120 microS.

"nitrate 0 (I don't mistest, I have duckweed, I know my test works I get readings on other tanks but not this one"

You won't have 0 ppm NO3, the difference will be to do with the amount of other anions in the water. NO3 testing is problematic even with lab. grade kit.

It was part of the reason I came up with the "Duckweed Index"<http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/threads/daphnia.12707/>, it uses the colour and growth of a floating plant (floating to take CO2, and to some degree light out of the equation) as an indicator of plant health, and tells you when an addition of fertiliser is required to maintain some growth.

cheers Darrel

 

[ErtyJr]

"nitrate 0 (I don't mistest, I have duckweed, I know my test works I get readings on other tanks but not this one"

You won't have 0 ppm NO3, the difference will be to do with the amount of other anions in the water. NO3 testing is problematic even with lab. grade kit.

It was part of the reason I came up with the "Duckweed Index"<http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/threads/daphnia.12707/>, it uses the colour and growth of a floating plant (floating to take CO2, and to some degree light out of the equation) as an indicator of plant health, and tells you when an addition of fertiliser is required to maintain some growth.

cheers Darrel

Oh yes I do know that I do not have exactly 0 nitrates. I have a very small amount which is unreadable. My plants actually have a nitrate deficiency, and I need to dose it, but alas I haven't bought it yet because to me my fishes health is more important than my plants having the perfect color. My logic has been the plants are doing well without dosing nitrate although not pristine. I like my plants but I believe my fish would be happier in such low nitrate levels so I choose not to dose. What is your opinion on this darrel? I have not read through your link yet because I'm at work and only firing out a quick reply, but I will after work.

I just did a quick glance of your duckweed link. There is quite a bit of very promising looking information in there, I am going to bookmark this to research later. Thank you darrel I'm quite intrigued by this as I hate my duckweed but have been keeping it because it keeps my parameters so low.