Snails and temperature

[idris]

It seems I had been running my tank a little too cold at 23c. I've increased it to 25/26c and seem to have an increase in small pest snails.

I have 3 Assassins in the tank (somewhere). Every time I've seen them in the last few months they seem to be clutched together, and they obviously haven't been diligent in their hunting duties recently.

Is temperature likely to be a factor with either of these problems?

 

[spyder]

It's possible snail production could be on the increase with higher temps and also with over feeding.

I know you raised your temp due to LFS advice after losing some livestock but I usually run my tanks 22-24. Never kept those fish you lost, Rainbows? so can't offer anything on that.

 

[mlgt]

Snails will reproduce when they think theres enough food to survive etc.

So I would simply reduce the amount of food going in the tank. What kind of pest snails do you have?

Regarding Assassins I threw 2-3 in my 350l tank and literally months later I have over 50 baby ones. This was because my new tank needed alot of MTS to move the substrate.

 

[idris]

I don't think it's down to over feeding. If anything I've been feeding a bit less recently as the algae is starting to bloom. (Thinkiing about that as I type, that could mean the opposite.)

It is possible the little snails are Assassins I guess. The adults being fixed together for a while would be consistent with that. At the moment they're just small, white and indistinguishable. What sort of time should it take for them to get to a size where they look similar tho the adults?

The other possibility is that the Assassins have died along with some of my fish.