Pest snails eating plants. Assassin snails to the rescue?

[Ryan1988]

Morning All,

A couple weeks ago i was told it was the pest snails eating my plants. What are your thoughts on Assassin snails? Someone mentioned I should get some to get rid of the pest snails that are eating my plants. Are there any down sides?

Tank has glow fish, amano shrimp, nerite snail. Plants crypto lucean, valisinaria, and dwarf lily. 

Thank you,

Ryan.

[Guppysnail]

I have kept bladder snails for decades. The thing I learned is they do not eat healthy plant leaves only those that are compromised and starting to fail or have failed and are already dying. They yellowing of some of your leaves indicates it may be a nutrient deficiency of some type and the snails are eating it before it dies completely. 
Maybe post a topic in the plants section with close ups of affected leaves and seek information on what nutrient deficiency they may be experiencing. We have some great folks who can help with that. 
 

Edit to add I experienced the same as @JoeQ I now have gobs of assassin snails and still have some bladder snails. Cutting back food, more regularly cleaning up debris and keeping all dying leaves trimmed back serves me better to reduce pest snail population. 

[JoeQ]

Down side: They reproduce almost as prolifically as pest snails and IMO they don't really put a dent in the pest snail population. Cutting back severely on feedings and manually removal is the best solution.

[AndEEss]

Bladder snails and pond snails don't eat healthy vegetation, in my experience.

[Kurt Brutting]

It could be the glow fish pecking on the plants. I welcome all snails. It’s all part of the eco-system. 
Guppysnail said it, over feeding will boost snail populations. 

[Ryan1988]

I'm not sure what is eating them but something is. With the easy green used twice a week it should be ok in terms of nutrients. I'm not sure what to do to fix it. 

[JoeQ]

Could they be "eating themselves" for the extra nutrients? Have you always used only 2 squirts of easy green? As your plant mass grows they require more food, when you trim they require less.

[Mary W.]

The pinholes on your java fern leaves look like potassium deficiency.

[Ryan1988]

@JoeQ @Mary W.

Is there a way to test for nutrients the coop test strips do not. What they do test everything shows fine. I have always done 2 pumps on Wed and Saturday. I dont know if I need more the only time I do root tabs other than once per month is if the crypticorian Lucian start to yellow. I had one have a yellow leaf today so I did some root tabs.

 

Thank you for the help!

[JoeQ]

On 5/25/2023 at 5:39 PM, Ryan1988 said:

@JoeQ @Mary W.

Is there a way to test for nutrients the coop test strips do not. What they do test everything shows fine. I have always done 2 pumps on Wed and Saturday. I dont know if I need more the only time I do root tabs other than once per month is if the crypticorian Lucian start to yellow. I had one have a yellow leaf today so I did some root tabs.

 

Thank you for the help!

I wouldn't run out and buy every specialized test at this point. I'd just up your dose of eazy green and see how your plants look in 2~3 weeks. As for testing pay attention to your nitrates which is a main nutrient - along with phosphate and potassium - in plant growth. You 'should' see this number rise and fall as your plants consume nutrients.

Edited May 26, 2023 by JoeQ

[Mary W.]

Unfortunately there isn't a readily-available test for potassium - at least I don't know of one.

If you use Easy Green and your tank nitrates are less than 40, agree with increasing your Easy Green dosing and see if that helps (Easy Green contains potassium).  If your nitrates are high, rather than more Easy Green (which contains nitrate) maybe try Seachem Flourish Potassium which is just potassium (not plain Seachem Flourish which contains very little potassium).

[JoeQ]

The one test I found extremely useful was a calcium/magnesium test. Most people see this only as water hardness but if you look deeper calcium & magnesium (which include sulfer in the form of sulfates) are considered secondary nutrients. Without magnesium, iron isn't absorbed. On the reverse too much potassium and calcium isn't absorbed. The Moral of the story is be very careful 'supplementing until you research the interplay between nutrients! Your real problem might stem from you not having enough nitrates which kick off the chain of phosphate & potassium being absorbed.

also @Mmiller2001is the best source when it comes to nutrition. Hopefully he will chime in!

Edited May 26, 2023 by JoeQ

[Mmiller2001]

How many gallons is the aquarium? And what's the pH?

[Ryan1988]

@Mmiller2001 20 Gallon, PH and KH are stable PH last time i looked was 6.8 - 7.0 i think. These color coded test strips make it hard to tell since it relys on shades instead of numbers. 

[Mmiller2001]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:58 PM, Ryan1988 said:

@Mmiller2001 20 Gallon, PH and KH are stable PH last time i looked was 6.8 - 7.0 i think. These color coded test strips make it hard to tell since it relys on shades instead of numbers. 

Not enough fertilizer and low iron. EG already is low in Fe, and with EG being EDTA chelated, a 7pH is further limiting iron.

[Theresa W]

Having just divested myself of two accidental assassin snail farms, I do not advise getting any. As previously mentioned, they do reproduce prolifically, as though they're putting in overtime to get a promotion. I also can back up the observations about bladder/pond snails eating only dying or dead plant matter. They clean a lot of film off of healthy plant leaves without eating the leaf itself, in addition to cleaning the glass. As long as you're not overfeeding your tank, you shouldn't end up with a population problem. There's a huge difference between a snail here and there and snails covering every surface; I think that because they're so commonly seen and do breed prolifically when given the opportunity, we aquarists tend to believe that they're a bigger problem than they actually are. That's how I ended up with the assassin snail farms. It's much easier to control the situation by adding less food to the tank than more critters. If you need more members in your clean-up crew, additional Amanos and/or nerites do a good job without increasing the bioload very much. Good luck! 🐸