Feeding alternatives for Assassin snails

[kenshi64]

Hello community!

1.I was messing around my mother's flower pot and noticed earth worms in it. Prior to this I was wondering whether my assassin snails were starving to death since they're apparently meat-only snails called 'whelks'. So I put two tiny earthworms in and I mean very tiny, say 1cm tops and less than a millimeter thin in a small tray. I put two of my snails in there as well, what happened next was odd, one snail noticed the earthworm and veered toward it, eventually moving 'over it' with it's foot(if that's the right word, do correct) and ate it.

But the other assassin didn't! Now I'm worried I might have introduced an earthworm into my tank. It won't survive I think because in the tray they seem to wiggle for a bit but then stopped...just checked this one is still kicking and the dumb old snail hasn't eaten it :/ Now I'm worried the previous one I assumed was eaten was really just stuck of the snails foot. So are earthworms a good idea for assassin food, what do you'll feed? and are they capable of carrying harmful pathogens into my tank?

2.This leads me to ask, from where do assassins eat? That tank like tube ? or is their face in their foot like apple snails? Relevant: I have some really cool and unfortunate picture of an apple snail that was killed my assassin (was ignorant at the time, dont hate ) It's like I'm removing the remainders of the apple snail and BAM! inside it's shell I find a comfortable assassin! :O

3. I have noticed this before and now too, do assassin's have like a loyalty thing where they won't kill other spiral shelled snails? I found some snails we have in the flower pot, 1.5 cm shell at largest and the body is an interesting neon green. When I was feeding the earthworms I tossed these in too! The assassin went close and the damn snail latched on to it like a hitchhiker, I had my forceps handy so I plucked it off asap nothing happened though. So is this loyalty theory true? What have you'll observed?

Thank you! I look forward to your responses and do let me know if you'd like those picture!

[stormhawk]

They are hunters more or less, which will also munch on detritus in the substrate. However, they need meat to survive, so if you intend to feed them with the earthworms next time, make sure you purge the earthworm of their droppings first and then you can chop it up into smaller pieces. Once the Assassin Snails latch on to the scent they will come over to investigate. The Assassin seems to hunt via using the long proboscis to pick up a scent. However, it may not target snails of its own species. It seems to use that proboscis and then it's own foot to peel open the other snail's trapdoor. Then the proboscis goes in to literally suck the other snail out. At least that's what I observed from my own Assassins at the time.

If you want a tip, get some Ramshorn Snails and set up a tank just to breed snails as food. I had a tank overrun with Ramshorn in just 2 weeks, which was then cleared by 5 Assassin Snails in just 3 weeks.

[wongce]

My assassins are feeding on the leftover flakes, fish food pellets... so "fat" so good..... all fat fat and breeding...

[kenshi64]

@stormhawk- Okay! That's great then they won't starve then The earth worm in question was less than a mm thin no way I can slice that up haha! Thanks for explaining that proboscis part! Guess the snail really didn't eat that worm it just walked over it..

All right sir will do! But I need to buy more assassins since these haven't reproduced and killed two of their friends But now in a big enough tank no encounters yet..they used to burrow together.. makes no sense why they'd kill each other

Sent from my B1-A71 using Tapatalk

[stormhawk]

Assassin Snails produce little egg cases that are kind of squarish in shape, scattered all over the tank. Most will not hatch if conditions are not right so you do not need to worry about massive snail infestations. You should find a snail that reproduces like rabbits, for example, what we have here in Singapore, that breeds like crazy are Physa snails, Malayan Trumpet Snails and Ramshorn Snails. The Physa come on plants mostly and are easily identified by their shell shape. They have spots on their body, which you can easily see through their translucent shells. Super easy to culture them in a plastic tank with a sponge filter and plant matter for them to munch on.

[leecs]

I had M'sian Trumpet Snail infestation in my tank. Introduced assassin snails and voila, trumpet snail population controlled. Nowadays, I see only empty M'sian Trumpet Snails shells left. Then later, I found small little assassin snail feeding on the substrate. They started reproducing like 2 weeks since introduction. So far so good.