Assassins

[eklikewhoa]

Finally saw one do it's thang.... not very effective since this one has been trying to eat the MTS all day now and probably 1000 others have surfaced in it's place

[J-WS6]

NICE!

[spyke1969]

All I know is I dropped 5 in a 10 gal that had pond snails in it & now it doesnt, not that I've seen the assassins either

[eklikewhoa]

Maybe they have a harder time getting to the MTS?

All I have noticed is that now instead of being in the substrate the MTS is up and about.

[J-WS6]

Maybe the cone shaped shell makes it easier for the MTS to retract further inside. Thus, the assassins spending more time trying to get to them?

These guys are cool to look at too.

[eklikewhoa]

I flicked the lights on to show Tim yesterday what an impact these guys have done.....


I will be looking for a pack of sidthimunki's today.

[szidlon]

All I know is I dropped 5 in a 10 gal that had pond snails in it & now it doesnt, not that I've seen the assassins either

I put the first ones I got (last August or so) into a tank overloaded with ramshorns, pond and mts's. They first cleaned out the pond and ramshorns, I'm guessing they were easier prey without the trap door so got picked off first. Now they're slowly taking on the mts's. It does take a while and if you're completely over run with mts's you still need do some trapping on your own to help out. You need to consider they can only eat so much, I think it's one snail every few days, so it's a slow process. I've found that once you get a few baby assassins in the tank, they help control the upcoming generations of mts's.

I have a lot of Assassins in my tanks now and I'm starting to see a decrease in visible mts's and more empty shells on the bottom. Besides, the assassins are nicer to look at in IMHO. I have a 10 gallon that I have a bunch of assassin babies in and once they reach a decent size I move them to other tanks. They reproduce so slowly that I have a tendency to hoard all the babies for myself.

[eklikewhoa]

Yeah for some reason I was hoping to have a miracle happen.

I plan on getting a loach/botia to help the assassins for now since I really can't trap anything with all the Ilangi fry in the tank.

[Mzungu]

Ah, now you need those sidthimunkis, huh?? :) They're still doing well at my place.

[eklikewhoa]

Wow... that's a long time now MB!

I don't think the sidthimunkis will fair well with the Trophs.


On a bright side I did find a sole survivor Burmese botia as well as a digested one so I am left with one Botia and no dead Ilangis!

[eklikewhoa]

So... I have seen the Assassins do their thing like 3 times now with 3 empty shells to show for it.

Added 7 Botia lohachata and a million MTS is now like 1!

[Delock]

????

[eklikewhoa]

oopps... fat fingered it.

The loaches have taken care of the MTS problem, cleaned my Eheims and there was a ton of empty shells in the canister. Now to somehow catch these loaches out...

[Delock]

told you long ago............but no

[eklikewhoa]

I heard you but wasn't feelin the clown loaches.