# Skunk Loach or Assassin Snail



## ianeberle (Aug 11, 2012)

I have a 36 gallon tank and my girlfriend has a 10 gallon tank. I recently added plants to both and the snails have gotten out of hand. They cover the glass at night and are even starting to show themselves at night. The ones in my girlfriend's tank are a brown/gold color and really ugly, but the ones in my tank have spiral shells and are white. Either way, I don't like them covering the glass.

I actually have two skunk loaches in my 36 gallon and I have had them for about a year. I hear them burrowing into the gravel at night, but from what I can see the snail population just keeps growing.

I was wondering if I put like 4 assassin snails in my tank and 1 in the 10 gallon tank would it clear it up? I know I would have to donate my skunk loaches to the pet store before I buy the snails... I'm simply asking which would work best.


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## SueD (Aug 4, 2012)

Assassins are a great way to reduce a snail population. I use them in each of my planted tanks. I used 3 in a 25 gallon and now they are breeding themselves, but you don't see these too often. They spend a lot of time burrowed in the substrate. Took care of my pest snails, though.


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## jbrown5217 (Nov 9, 2011)

It may take some time, but eventually the assassins would clear everything up. You could always do what I did when I first got live plants and picked any I saw out with my hand.


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## debisbooked (Jan 7, 2012)

I have had assassin snails in my 75g and 10 g for about six months now. They do eliminate some snails but not all. I have noticed that I am not manually removing as many as I did in the past. FYI, the assassins went after all my ramshorn snails first and then started in on the more common snails. I say go with the assassins but realize the snail problem will not disappear completely.


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## Bob-O (Jan 28, 2012)

I've heard the assassins won't eliminate snails all together but that was not my experience. I used to have tons of pond and trumpet snails in my 55 gallon tank and eventually in my 90 gallon as I moved everything from the 55. I bought 4 assassins. I was seeing babies after 2 months. Now I've traded around 40 to the LFS for store credit (free fish food!) and still have plenty in the 90 gallon tank. Now the only pond and trumpets snails I have are in an old 5 gallon frog tank cause I breed them specifically as food for the assassins. If they don't completely wipe out the "pest" snails, they'll surely get their population under control given some time.


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## James0816 (Jun 19, 2009)

You're best bet is bait and removal. It's always a tough call to add additional stocking to take care of pesty things like snails and algae.

Assassins will take care of some of them, but depending on the situation, may not be enough to eliminate it. You will wind up with more assassins over time and then have to deal with them. Which could be a good thing.

I'm working on manually removing snails in my tanks at the moment. I now have three snail free tanks. Only ten more to go. )


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