[Graceful]

So... back a few months, I got a few plants. Apparently they had some stowaways. I now have four medium-sized ramshorns and countless, ridiculously tiny babies. Yikes!!

I think I'll buy some assassin snails to help control the population. I don't have the heart to kill them myself... but I'm ok with feeding them to something else.

Question is: will the assassins kill my nerite snail? I definitely want to keep her! She even has a name.

 

[Micho]

Nerite snails are certainly bigger than the regular assassin snail but I still would not recommend getting them. Assassin snails are meant to kill other snails so I would not be surprised if it took down your nerite snail when it cleans out all the other pond/ramshorns.

Hitchhiking snails aren't that bad, I don't do anything about them and the population is usually under control in my tanks.

But if you do want them gone, killing them yourselves is the only option. You could lure them with a piece of zucchini, by putting it in a net, and wait for lots of snails to much on it. Just pull the net out and dumb the snails.

Or just squish them if your finger, your choice! Pulling them out one by one sounds like hard work.

 

[Graceful]

What if I remove the nerite temporarily while the assassins do their job?

I have a creek in my neighborhood, can I just release the ramshorns there?

 

[babystarz]

What if I remove the nerite temporarily while the assassins do their job?

I have a creek in my neighborhood, can I just release the ramshorns there?

No, not unless they're native to your area. Released pet snails wreak havoc on the environment.

 

[Micho]

No, not unless they're native to your area. Released pet snails wreak havoc on the environment.

Same with some plants, if they're not native they cannot be released to the wild, who knows that nature havoc could happen.

Just throw them into the garbage and don't look back. You could remove the Nerite but then how would you remove the assassin snail?

 

[RussellTheShihTzu]

Unless I'm misremembering, it is against the law in California to release *any* species; even native ones. But I could be wrong.

Assassin snails in with Nerites is iffy. Mine are in with MTS with no problems. If you get just one Assassin snail you should be fine. It's when you have three or more that they can "gang up" on a much bigger snail.