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Assassin Snail burying?

Tom

Tom

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Joined
8 Sep 2007
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2,631
Location
Kawanabe, Kagoshima, Japan 鹿児島県南九州市川辺町
My new Assassin Snail has taken to burying himself - is that normal behaviour? He was pretty active yesterday afternoon and early this morning, but has been half/covered in sand for the last few hours. I dug him out earlier to see if he had died on me, and he just went off and dug himself back in again.

Tom
 
i see mine once every few weeks lol

I know hes still about because the snail population is going down :)
 
Or to lay eggs or what they lay. They breed somehow and for the protection of offsprings they take a plunge in the sand or what each of us have in the aquarium.
 
Strange creatures these snails. Have done a brilliant job of clearing my tank of pest snails but keep finding them dead. Assume they've done for themselves by wiping out their prey. The survivors burrow all the time and I occasionally get little pest snail blooms until they wake up and gorge.

Strangest occurence with them so far is a large (almost as big as them) pond snail that emerged in my tank and kept growing and growing. Couldn't understand why they hadn't taken it out until I noticed how quick it was. Fastest snail I've ever seen, faster than the assassins and they're fast, so appeared to be eluding them. Almost as fast as some of my fish. I assume it's a mutant that's evolved in my tank to outcompete it's predator. Have been meaning to pull it out myself.

This morning found it's shell sitting near the front of the tank. Well and truly done for. Lazy creatures, these assassins, but ultimately deadly.
 
Hi all,
I can add to my water to help with their shells as apparently they don't do well in very soft water conditions
Click to expand...
I've managed to kill of a few now, and I've found they don't last very long in soft water, even if the pH is above pH7. Mine is about 4dKH and 150MicroS conductivity, and that is definitely too soft, Ramshorns don't like it either, although MTS are fine, although older specimens have very eroded spirals. I'm not sure what effect CO2 regulated pH has on them as I don't use CO2. I tried a small cuttle bone in the soft water tank, but I never saw them graze on it (although other snails did), it may be that a "shrimp block" might be more successful.

Both Assassin snails and Red Ramshorn do very well in Corsham tap water, which is calcium carbonate rich, pH7.8 ish, about 650 microS and 17dKH.

cheers Darrel
 
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