Assassin Snail Care Guide - THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS KILLER!

Assassin snails are one of my favorite aquarium snails to keep. Not just for their ability to control a pest snail population either. We discuss assassin snare care, how to breed assassin snails and talk about some of the potential down sides to keeping them in your freshwater aquarium. Will assassin snails kill shrimp? I'll share with you my thoughts and findings.

Here at Lucky Schmuck's Fish Cave aquarium channel we cover different species of aquarium fish and aquatic plants for your freshwater aquarium. We focus on keeping it cheap, learning and sharing our knowledge of the tropical fish hobby, and even try our hand at breeding our pet fish and shrimp!

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[brandonwarner]

Actually, just to clear something up, and to put it in more scientific terms, the tube sticking out of the top of their heads is called a siphon, and they do not eat with it. Rather, they "breath" through it (bring water across the gills) and sniff for prey with it, scanning back and fourth in search of their next meal. It also acts as a snorkel when they burry themselves in substrate. However, they do have another, different tubular apparatus they do eat with. This is called a retractile proboscis, which is a hollow muscular tube that can be moved around like a tiny elephant trunk. The proboscis shoots out of it's mouth, engorged with blood when it's hungry... sort of like a mouth boner I guess. Anyhow at the tip, the proboscis is equipped with yet another retractable apparatus! This time, it's much smaller and more like a tongue. A scraping tongue, with tiny teeth (denticles) on it. This is called the radula. So, the Assassin Snail literally licks it's prey to death with a rasping toothed tongue shooting out of the tip a big fat mouth boner, rending and slurping up flesh and guts from it's victim, lick by lick. Bizarre, fascinating, and grotesque.

[SimonJones]

I placed 2 Assassin snails in a 10gallon that had 300+ pest snails. I now have 300+ assassin snails lol

[Mill_O]

The 3 assassins I picked up absolutely cleared up my pest snail situation. One sadly died, one is rampaging right now and the other is literally burying like shown here. Thank you for this content, glad to see some familiar animal behaviour!

[TMAquatics]

So that’s why my socks those darn snails 😉👍

[Rinqo]

My assassin snail survived freeze level temperature water from the Texas snowstorm we had a couple weeks ago. He's a survivor

[quizzicallyLT]

Sounds quite candid but still informative. It's obvious that you've kept and bred them for a long time. They're among my fav creatures ever

[emeraldent]

Like your style man, lotta channels on youtube, you keep pretty straight shooting and your passion shines through! Keep up the good work!

[matthewray]

You did a great job with the presentation of this video. I just subscribed. Thanks

[allthingsfelicia]

I really wish I would’ve found this (or done more research ) before I completely got rid of my whole planted aquarium that had over 1, 000 pest snails because it was all good until I decided to save the pest snail because I felt bad about letting it face doom 🙄 but this helps and I will buy an assassin from now on if I have another issue

[OutlawCaliber]

Assassin snails can, and will take down larger snails. Nerites, mysteries, etc. I had three mystery snails, and about 30+ ramshorns. 10 assassins(we though we only had four--I have sand substrate, and they like to burrow) wiped out all the ramshorns, and then ganged up on the three mystery snails. I've never seen assassins going for fish. If your fish dies, and settles, they'll eat it. I lost 15-20 ghost shrimp to assassin snails. You wanna make sure you have feeder snails, or protein feed to keep shrimp with them. They're predator snails, carnivorous. They actively hunt for protein.

There's no real way to tell which are male, or female. You'll see one or two on the side of one. They're having sex, or trying to have sex. I've noticed my males are usually smaller, and the female is usually larger. That's not how they are, it's just I always see smaller males going after larger females to procreate. They'll breed between 75-82 degrees, and well fed. If there's not enough protein for more, they'll stop breeding.

[Anakinuk]

Agreed I have exact same problem. I had a combination of maybe 300-500 ramshorn and pest snails, they were everywhere! Bought four assassin snails. Fast forward 5 months the original snails is virtually zero, every now and then I see a couple of them. But instead I have 100s of assassin snails. Yes they breed slower than the other snails but in the end I still have a large snail problem :(

[andrewgoldfish]

Thanks for all the first hand info. I'd never trust them with my nerites. The Goldfish eventually take care of all my unwanted snail issues, but it looks like a good option for all the tropical folks.

[LeeDfined]

1:43...that shrimp was like "I dont think so."

[sherrysfishroom]

Love it. It was a great care guide. Needed this at my finger tips. Great job on information.

[shanejones]

Hit the like button as soon as I heard are they the reason the sock is missing in the wash, love it bro 😂

[mikem]

Great review. I started with 3 adults and now I have at least 12 -15 babies and adolescents.

[claudiah.]

Thanks for the info! I had 3 assassin snails delivered today and hopefully they’ll eat the pond snails that hitchhiked into my 10G lol

[Ethereal_BmZ]

Sub all the way from South Africa 😁🇿🇦 love your channel and love that its growing more keep it up🤙🏻

[deanhampton]

Very informative! I think I will pick up one or two for my 10 gallon.

[lauraspaeth]

Excellent video, not a moment of my time wasted. THANK YOU!