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I just bought 10 Assasin Snails. They eat other snails and are way cool. They hunt in packs and can take down snails several times larger than themselves. A very neat way to clear out those pest snails.

They sound great. I could use a herd of them in a few of my tanks. I bought a pair of clown loaches to rotate around but they can't keep up.

Assasin snail's breed just as readily as any other snail, you'll still have lot's of snail's in your tank. It'll just be a diff species than you have now.

They breed readily, but they don't populate anything like pest snails. If they don't have good high protein feed they don't breed at all. There is also their slow growth rate, where it takes nearly a year to reach sexual maturity. I've never heard of anyone getting overpopulated with them. Izzy- if you are over run with them, please send them my way! These are cool looking snails!

They are very cool snails! I have a 20 gallon long as a breeding tank for them. Their eggs are pouches with a single egg in each one. I have a lot of the eggs developing now. The babies supposedly hide in the gravel or substrate until they are about 1/4 inch long before emerging.

They do eat other snails and they will gang up on them if they are larger snails. I bought mine to clear out the massive amounts of ramshorn and MTS that are in my tanks. I also bought some Botia kubotai loaches about the same time. They also eat snails. So far, the loaches are doing a much better job and their tank has gotten to be my "dumping place" for the unwanted snails.

The thing about the Assassin Snails is that they just look cool! After they start hatching, I plan on keeping them in my crayfish tanks to help keep the populations of the other snails in check. I figure if I just leave a couple of each of the other types of snails in the tanks when the assassins are introduced, they will do a good job on keeping the populations down.

Jack, I haven't taken any pics of mine yet. Do you have any pics of yours?

Assassin snails don't breed anywhere even close to the numbers of our regular aquatic "pest snails". In fact, my Sulawesi Tylo snails have produced more offspring for me than my Assassins. Oddly enough, I don't have any decent pics of them. They also eat far less Ramshorn (their favorite) than I thought they would. They eat one, then lay around for a few days like me on Turkey Day! They are awesome snails, and they won't over populate your tank like you'd think a snail would. They also don't gobble up all their live snail food at once, which is good if you don't have tons of extra snails to feed them.

No pics yet, Vera, but mine look just like purgatori27's. Micro welks!

How many snails would you put with your crayfish Vera? The two snails that I put with mine turned into a midnight snack. I have a 20gal tall. I would like to use them to keep the tank clean.

Mine are in their own tank with ram's and Najas. That is it. I'm using an HOB with a foam filter over the intake. I have loads of rams in my tilapia tanks, so I'll keep them well fed with snails and snail eggs to make babies for the babies.

I'm only going to try them after they are breeding well and I have plenty to spare. I want to try them in the crayfish tanks to keep the populations of other snails down. Some crayfish like to eat snails, while others don't bother them. I will have to see which ones I can keep them with before I decide to put more than two into any one tank that is the home of a crayfish. I will also need to be sure I can sex them correctly to have pairs in the tanks. It would be really nice to be able to house more than just a crayfish in a tank.

I agree. I would like to put something else in my tank with my crayfish, but so far he has eaten everything including other fish. I'm starting to think he is going to be a bachelor his entire life with absolutely no friends.

Oh my god, I just pulled a dead apple snail from my 10 gallon and it was possibly the worst thing I have ever smelled.

Red_Blue......Way to kill a conversation!! They DO small just awful though!!!

But seriously now I do have a reason for pulling out an old posting. Vera, how do you sex an assassin snail? Is it like sexing the apple snails? I have tried peeking into the shell........forget about it they don't cooperate at all!

I've been told it has something to do with the way the feelers are arranged, but I don't know what it is. Best way is to watch for mating activity. I've seem mine mating so I'm pretty sure I have several pairs. No babies yet.

Well that just be a sight to behold! I can't even imagine it. Care to post a pic?

The easiest way to sex them is to catch them mating. The male will be riding the female's back, more or less.

My tank is covered with egg pouches, but I have yet to see a baby. The egg pouches seem to take a very long time to hatch as well. I can see the babies developing inside the pouches, though. I've also seen empty pouches that baby snails had to emerge from. I guess they are down in the gravel and will emerge at some point.

I've read it takes them a month to hatch, then the babiies hide out until about 1/8". They need baby snails of other species to survive.

I have lots of both rams horn and MTS snails in the tank and there are lots of babies from them. The little pond snails seem to be their favorites. They disappear very quickly in that tank and I never see their babies in there.

The pic that I posted earlier shows a mating pair and another male trying to work his way into the mix from the opposite side. In my case, the females seem to be larger. Once you've seen them in the act a few times, you can kind of pick out the individuals assuming you don't have a tank full of them. From all I've read, the babies do tend to stay hidden in the substrate until they are around a quarter inch or so.

Funny that Mom's Assassins seem to prefer Pond snails over Ramshorn. Mine are the opposite. I constantly have to add Ramshorn, and I constantly take out Pond/Bladder snails that have grown huge to feed to my Puffer. I always see baby Pond/Bladder snails and never see even one baby Ramshorn that wasn't added that week by me. I was absolutely amazed when I looked into Mom's tank. There were Assassin eggs everywhere. All over pieces of lead weights used for plants, all over plants, all over the gravel, everywhere. I think there was even an egg on a Ramshorn's shell! Mine have laid eggs, but nothing like hers. I did notice her snails were larger than mine, and I think when I received mine last November they weren't of breeding age yet. It'll be very interesting to see how many babies she ends up with.

I just wish I had ever seen an Assassin baby snail. I keep staring at the tank and all I see are MTS and Rams Horn babies. I keep wondering if some of the ones I think are MTS are baby Assassins instead. None of the babies that are large enough for me to distinguish from others are Assassins anyway. There are a huge number of baby snails in the tank, so perhaps some are actually Assassins. Who knows?

I was looking in the wrong place for egg! I never saw any on the plants, but today I spotted the snails on the sponge filter covering the HOB. It is literally covered with assassin eggs! The ino I have is that the hatchlings are tiny copies of the adults. I've noticed a dramtic drop in baby snails, so who knows?

I'm glad you found the eggs! Mine don't seem to care for laying eggs on the plants much either. There is hardly a piece of gravel that you can't find an egg pouch on though.

I stopped at "That Pet Place" yesterday on my way back from Philadelphia and they had assassin snails for only $1.99 each. I bought 20 more of them. I paid $5 each plus shipping for the ones I bought online a while back!

I finally saw a baby assassin snail! I looked closer and now I see at least a dozen! I don't know why I'd never seen them until now, but it looks like I have loads!