Assassin snail, yo yo loach or kuhli loach?

[nunuchan]

Hey everybody, I'm going to try and move into my apartment today and bring the tank with me either today or tomorrow. I was away from my tank for a month and left my sick betta in the care of my boyfriend and my tank with my brothers.

Well, my betta died and my family did NO water changes for my 14G and the little hitchhiker snails that came with the plants I bought multiplied to about 150. I came back and the tank was cycled (good, I guess?) but now I have to re-do it for when i move today.

To maintain the existing hitchhiker snail population I would like to by a snail eater such as the assassin snail, yo yo loach or kuhli loach. Now, I could only buy one or two depending on the price.

In addition I will also be buying a betta to put in the tank in about a week or so.

CURRENT TANKMATES:

• Albino cory
• Spotted cory
• Green mystery snail
• Son of green mystery snail (about same size)

FUTURE TANKMATES:

• Betta
• Snail eater

I'm also going to invest in buying many more live plants and maybe some driftwood for the tank this week as well. The substrate is gravel and I'd like to keep it that way for a while.


Any suggestions?

[Sakura8]

Loaches need to be in groups and I'm pretty sure Yo-Yo loaches will get too big for a 14g. You could fit maybe 2-3 kuhli loaches in there. And uh, what's an assassin snail?

Other option is just scoop out as many pond snails as possible and start squishing.

[Tisia]

I think assassins would probably kill your mystery snails as well

I've heard of putting something like a piece of lettuce in your tank at night, and then in the morning there should be bunches eating away at it and you just pull it out and squish

[Sakura8]

Also heard you can pull them out of their shells, chop up and feed to your betta. Again,

[Tisia]

or squish and then pull the shell off. I know Robin found the one I squished for him to be very tasty

[Sakura8]

Uhm . . . nummy?

Yo-Yo Loach. 5", minimum tank size 40 gallons according to my fish book.

[diablo13]

Which fish book is it? And if you got assasin snails, you need about five to deal with that, but they'd kill you mysteries, too

[Pitluvs]

Assassin snail, 100%. Great with fish, small bioload and they kill other snails perfectly. Fish do good jobs but only for a short time. Trust me... get Assassins.

I'd personally set up a small tank for your mystery snails and move them out until your pest snails are gone. Assassins are easy to find new homes for.

I gag at the thought of squishing snails and pulling them out to feed.. yuck yuck yuck! I also see snails as living creatures too O_o Some are just colder than me! I have a tank full of Malaysian Trumpets, I don't mind at all.

[dsgems]

OK What are these different snails? I heard it is good to have 1 or 2 snails in a tank. Where can I find info on a mystery snail? Is he the good kind?

[diablo13]

It depends on which kind you want. Mystery, or Apple, snails get pretty big, imagine a ping pong ball, and smaller ones, like pond snails, breed with themselves, so if you get one you could easily get thousands.