westies that eat snails

[levine]

I am looking for some westies that eat snails? I know nothing about snails. I have some small spiral cone looking snails and I would like them to be gone. This is a planted 40br that I plan on stocking with westies. I prefer cichlids or catfish for a soft water setup. I plan on purchasing the below fish, but could move them to another tank.
Congochromis sabinae
Pelvicachromis suboccelatus Moanda
Hemichromis sp. Moanda

 

[Rod]

Sounds like Malaysian trumpet snails
I don't know of any Westies that eat them

Seems lots of people use clown loaches.....but this seems cruel because Clown loaches grow way too big for most tanks

I keep them in all my tanks because they eat uneaten food....before it goes septic....and they burrow into substrate burying detritus where plants can use it
I've never had them eat eggs....although cichlids never let them near their eggs anyway

I find I have to thin their population from time to time....a bit of zucchini in a plastic sandwich container fills up overnight and they can be easily removed

 

[aquaticclarity]

Assasin Snails

They are a small to medium (3/4"-1" or so) growing snail that eat other snails. they are very effective at cleaning out tanks infested with malaysian livebearering snails. It may take them a while if the population is dense-adding more assasin snails will speed things up of course.

The only strike against them in what you asked for is that they are not from West Africa.

Jeff

 

[levine]

Will the assassin snails reproduce out of control and become an additional problem? Thanks for the information, great stuff. I was thinking of assassin snails, I really didn't want to get a loach. I figured they may pester my fish.

 

[aquaticclarity]

There are male and female Assasin snails (unlike most snails-many of which can reproduce asexually). The assasins only lay a few eggs at a time and only 1/2 the snails can lay eggs so the reproduction rate is slow to say the least. I don't know of anyoe who is over run with assasin snails. One guy around here has managed to raise about 75 offspring but it took almost a year and he has a large number of adults to begin with.

Jeff

 

[levine]

Great - thanks Jeff

 

[ronv]

Lots of fish will eat snails if you crush them first, including westies. Just crush the snail against the glass and let it sink. Free snack for the fish and the snail is history!

 

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

There are male and female Assasin snails (unlike most snails-many of which can reproduce asexually). The assasins only lay a few eggs at a time and only 1/2 the snails can lay eggs so the reproduction rate is slow to say the least. I don't know of anyoe who is over run with assasin snails. One guy around here has managed to raise about 75 offspring but it took almost a year and he has a large number of adults to begin with.

Jeff

just to be a bit facetious.

snails are either male/female or hermaphrodites. with a large number of the freshwater types being hermaphrodites. as hermaphrodites they still need another snail to mate with (though some are able to self-fertilize (which is still sexual reproduction and the offspring will be genetically different from the parent)) you generally need 2 snails, both of which become "pregnant" as a result (I use the word pregnant to refer to fertilisation in general, it depends on the method of reproduction ie live-bearer, free-spawner, egg laying etc)

a sexual reproduction is via binary fission or budding, which are generally reserved for simple organisms like microbes. some plants also reproduce asexually, usually in the form of runners from the main plant.

a more in-depth document on it link

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
PSychotic Madmans post is true for nearly all snails with the exception of MTS and allied Melanoides and Melania spp. ~ "Thiarid" Snails which are able to reproduce by parthenogenesis (and vivipary), meaning that in this case a single snail can produce multiple initially tiny clones of itself.
cheers Darrel

 

[bigbird]

Hi, just to add some further info for your help and thoughts. Like algae , I find snails become prolific if there is too much food or left overs that the fish do not consume. Feed less, make more water changes and you should find that after 4 weeks the snail problem should be reduced. If you have no plecos etc, I would at nicht also place is an open bottle 2-4 wafers of algae pellets and set th alarm for 3-4am. You should find plenty of snails in this sort of trap. The other idea, which some LFS do is rent out a good old loach for 4-5 days and your snails are gone like a snowflake on the stove.....cheers jk :biggrin: