Are you having pest snail problems in your aquarium? They often leave aquarists frustrated due to their invasion. But don’t worry, you have come to the right place. This article will provide a solution for caring for assassin snails in the aquarium to eliminate pest snails. Keep reading, OK!!!
The pest snails usually prey on live aquatic plants and consume a variety of invertebrate foods, especially sinking or clipping wall pellets. It’s very harmful, slowly killing our beloved plants and starving our helpful shrimps and snails.
Controlling them is slightly difficult. The faster reproduction behavior of the pest snails can generate many snails in just a few days. This means that they will need more food to survive and produce more dirt. Without us saying, you surely know if it will pollute your planted tank.
Don’t be discouraged; there is a natural creature that becomes its predator in the wild. Assassin snails (Clea Helena/Anentome Helena) are the natural killers that can help you remove all pest snails in your tank.
They are freshwater snails that belong to the family of Buccinidae. Assassin snail is easy to care for. They are also known as bumblebee snails due to their shell pattern.
Assassin snails are often sold in trade as biological agents that eat most aquarium pest snails, such as ramshorn, pond, bladder, and Malaysian trumpet snails. A single Clea Helena usually costs about $2 and gets cheaper if you purchase some snails at once.
This article will guide you on keeping the assassin snails in the right way and make them useful in the tank. This talk covers assassin snail care, diet, tank setup, breeding, and additional topics.
Origins And Natural Habitats Of Assassin Snails
Assassin snails are a member of whelks/true whelks (sea snails) and are adapted to live in freshwater environments. These aquatic snail varieties can be found across Southeast Asia, including Thailand, northern Peninsular Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
These specimens inhabit nearly all types of freshwater habitats, primarily in areas with soft substrates. These places usually include rivers, streams, lakes, ditches, agricultural water sources, ponds, reservoirs, and canals.
Assassin Snails Appearances
Bumblebee snails are relatively small, like other aquarium snails. Adults typically grow to a height of 1 inch, but they can grow significantly more, depending on their diet and other factors. Wild types tend to have bigger bodies than captivity-bred forms.
These pest-snail eaters have a shell shaped like a cone/trumpet, with dark brown and yellow lines that run around it. They have a pretty thick shell with 5-6 whorls spirally, and you can see many lateral ridges through there. A part of the shell tends to wear away as the snails age, specifically the apical part. Some specimens may have a plain dark brown color without spiral yellow stripes over their shell, but it is rare.
Another exciting part of the shell is the operculum, which is known as “the trap door.” It has a brown color and functions to close off the shells when the snails feel threatened. They will soon hide inside.
This part will fall when the assassin snails die. If something is wrong with your snails, the shells will not close properly. This part is a simple way to determine whether they are healthy or not.
Their actual bodies are yellowish with grey dots all over. Their mantle shapes a foldable tube. Anentome Helena’s siphon is equipped with chemoreceptors, which are similar to those found in most snail scavenger or predator species. Its uses include perceiving water and finding food at a distance.
Their siphon is strong and acts as a multipurpose water sampling tool. This part is created from an elongated left mantle edge fold. The siphon also has another function, which is to provide a snorkel (breathing tube) when these snails are buried.
Another interesting aspect to discuss is their feet. They have a muscular and robust foot that is relatively thin and translucent (propodium). The functions of their muscles are to move the snails forward at a very slow rate. The foot also helps them to climb, burrow, and capture a portion of food.
Assassin snails have a head equipped with a pair of mobile tentacles that can be partially retracted. This part is very sensitive, helping them explore the aquarium and search for food.
At the base of the tentacles, there is a pair of eyes. According to some researchers, their eyes can only perceive the diversity between dark and light. They also do not use their vision during hunting.
Under the optimal conditions with enough nutritious food supplies, assassin snails could live around 5 years.
Assassin Snails Behavior And Temperaments
Bumblebee snails are extremely slow-moving, so they will not exhibit many activities in your aquarium. You may see them infrequently during the day because they prefer to engage in more activities at night, such as hunting for food.
These pest snail killers will stop this habit when they sense you feed them in the daytime. They will appear soon and go straight to the food.
Assassin snails commonly spend almost all their time buried themself in the substrates, especially during the daytime. It does not mean they are resting or sleeping. However, it’s one of the hunting methods they use to ambush prey by waiting for it to move above their body.
Clea Helena is not a social species. They prefer to act by themselves. However, they can work together with other assassin snails if they have an interest in attacking a giant snail.
In my experience, they can become aggressive and cannibalistic if there is no available food in the tank and they feel so hungry. My little assassin snail becomes a victim of the large one. They also eat my nerite snail and poor cherry shrimp. So, when your tank is clean of the pest snails, move them immediately to a separate tank to avoid this incident.
Hunting Methods Of Assassin Snails
Their hunting styles depend on how hungry they are. They can hunt actively or tend passively by waiting for the prey to come (ambush tactic). If they are not hungry, the bumblebee snails usually bury themselves under the substrates as a precaution against predators such as pufferfish, crabs, and crayfish.
Assassin snails often spend several hours burying themselves in the substrate before they feel hungry. And, when the prey is nearby, they are ready to attack immediately.
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Keeping these aquatic snails, you will see their extended proboscis when exploring the tank to hunt for food. Once they get prey, assassin snails will grip with their foot and suck the prey bodies using their proboscis while it’s still alive.
Some reports discuss whether these snail predators use a toxin or venom to paralyze the pest snails or prey. However, to date, we have not found any scientific research to confirm this statement.
Bumblebee snails are actually strong enough to defeat the prey by their strength, although the prey is larger. Even though the snails (prey) have a trapdoor, they still could peel open it using their proboscis.
Assassin Snail Care, Housing, And Tank Setup
The minimum tank size for assassin snails is a 5-gallon (20-liter) tank. And, how many assassin snails per gallon? There is no valid data about that. Most aquarists typically use 2-4 assassin snails for a 10-gallon tank, depending on the number of pest snails present.
Using sandy and soft substrates such as “Fluval Black Sand” is good for them. It will help them quickly bury themselves and also use a soil substrate form.
Creating their natural habitat by adding aquatic plants, such as anubias species, cryptocoryne, Bolivian sword, and more, helps them grow healthy. Don’t worry, assassin snails would not bite it.
Adding some decorations like caves, wood, or stones is unnecessary. But putting it gives the snails space to explore, climb, hide, and provides a place for them to lay their eggs.
The tank must have an excellent filtration system to keep the water quality. You can also equip it with a heater to maintain a stable temperature. It will give additional value to snail growth.
There are no specific requirements for the lighting system because anentome helena can live well under various radiation types. You should set it up according to the needs of the aquarium plants. Assassin snails can also live in a much different water flow, so you can set them wherever you want.
Bumblebee snail shells are made from 95–99.9 % calcium carbonate. If the pH of the water is low, it can dissolve the calcium carbonate contained in their shells. It will scrape their shell and leave a hole, putting them in dangerous conditions around other species, such as fish.
Ideally, the water should not be too acidic and/or soft. Here is the appropriate water parameter for assassin snails to thrive better in the aquarium:
- Temperature: 75 – 82 degrees Fahrenheit (24–28 degrees Celsius)
- pH level: 7.0–8.0
- KH level: 2–10
- GH level: 6 – 20
- Nitrate: <20
Like the fish, assassin snails can also get a disease in the aquarium. You should find a way to treat the assassin snails’ illness and take care of them with love to prevent it from coming again.
Sometimes their shells are susceptible to several problems. For example, they may display some white spots sticking across their shells. It is perhaps a parasite that attaches to the outside of the shells. There are several kinds of parasites that survive by utilizing the snail’s body parts.
Adding aquarium fertilizers that contain calcium or calcium supplements is essential to maintain their shells in better condition. But the best thing is to give them food that contains rich calcium substances. Because it will be critical if the shells are weakening, the shells could crack and crush.
If the water temperature is lower and the available food is not enough for them, the snail’s shell growth may be too slow. Regular water changes, every 1-2 weeks, help maintain balanced water quality and keep nitrate levels low, as they are also susceptible to poor water quality.
The one substance that must go away from the tank is “copper.” It’s toxic and very unsafe for most invertebrate species, including assassin snails. You should always check any contents that you add to the aquarium. Some medicines commonly contain several percent of a copper compound.
Assassin Snail Tankmates
These aquarium snail species can coexist with most peaceful fish types. The small fish that often swim around the middle level of tanks, such as platies, guppies, mollies, garra rufa, neon tetras, SAE, and cherry barbs, are a perfect option.
Calm larger fish varieties, such as pearl gourami, dwarf gourami, angelfish, and discus, can also be their friends in the tank. A fishkeeper tells us if they could keep betta fish. These fish are known to live in peace with more giant snails, like apple snails. The peaceful, bottom-dwelling fish types, such as corydoras and otocinclus, can also be kept together.
Almost all of the mollusk varieties, although having huge sizes, are not safe from assassin snails. Dwarf shrimp types should not be put with them, such as cherry shrimp. The larger species, such as bamboo shrimps, may coexist with them.
Never try to add pufferfish, loaches, goldfish, cichlids, and other aggressive/big species, or they will become their snack. Crabs and crayfish must also be avoided. They are natural predators of all snail varieties.
Assassin Snails Feeding And Diet
The bumblebee snails are carnivorous. They will refuse all aquatic vegetation, including algae, which is different from other usual aquarium snails. Their favorite foods are pest snails (ramshorn and Malaysian trumpet snails), snail eggs, fish eggs, and shrimp fry.
Live and frozen foods could be a good choice for them. You can try feeding them bloodworms, brine shrimp, or frozen shrimp meat. Sometimes, they also accept sinking pellets, flakes, and algae wafers, but this varies from individual to individual.
Generally, a single mature assassin snail can eat 1-2 pest snails daily. Typically, they do not eat their own eggs or young snails. But in certain conditions, they may prey on them.
Assassin Snails Breeding
The Clea Helena is quite easily bred in captivity. Though you are a beginner, you could handle them when reproducing. Unlike most of the gastropod species, they are not hermaphrodites. So, you need a male and a female to spawn them. It’s beneficial for you to control the number in your tank.
Distinguishing between their sexes is hard; both sexes are very similar. To increase the chances of success, keep these snails in a group of around six or more individuals.
Before the breeding section, a pair of assassin snails will follow each other around the tank for about 12 hours or more. When the courtship phase begins, the male will climb onto the female’s shell and hold it tightly for 20 to 30 minutes. After that, the male will move slightly to the right side of the female’s body and begin spawning.
This process typically takes 3-5 hours and usually occurs at night. Once the mating activity is over, the females and males will be separated. She will probably lay the little eggs above the heavy surface, such as aquarium walls, aquatic plants, rocks, and driftwood, to protect them.
Eggs will hatch after 20 to 30 days. The juveniles Clea Helena will bury themselves underneath the substrates till they’ve grown. You may not see the snails again until they have adults (around 6 months).
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