Hi,
I have some new Assassin snails and I was curious if they could be housed with my yellow shrimp? Their in their own tank now, but I would like them in a bigger tank and the shrimp have their 20 gal . I looked to see what I could find out about this with no luck. Any advice?
Thanks:hi:
Yes you can house them but there is a little risk and it has been discussed many times. Assassins can and may catch a shrimp if the chance presents itself. By feeding bloodworms, Feeder snails, and other meaty foods that are easier for the assassins to catch/find this attack ratio drops to almost nil. I have assassins in all my shrimp and cray tanks with no loses to any of my shrimp. I have tried almost any experiment that you can name to get assassins to take down shrimp but have not succeded yet. I find most attacks are either a shrimp so stupid it deserves to be removed from the gene pool or a wrong place wrong time sort of case. (The stupid shrimp cause is 99% when the attacka occur, stealing food from an assassin is not a good idea.)
One note here very few of the reports did the person actually see the actual capture most are of the My Assassin Killed my Shrimp panics when they see it eating one. They did not see the kill so they can not say that the shrimp was alive when the assassin got a hold of it. Assassins will eat dead and dying shrimp.
I would be more worried about snails you want like apples or even nerites than I would about losing shrimp.
Thanks Sounguru I have a shrimp only tank and I've been trying to think of something else to put in with them . So if I tried the Assassins and plenty of bladder snails and blood worms they should be pretty safe in a 20 gal tank. I'll give it more thought before I try Thanks
Hi
I bought my Assassins from Sounguru and I can tell you that there seems to be no one out there with as much experience as him. BUT. I will tell you with certainty that your shrimp will be eaten as mine were. ALL of my shrimp were happy,healthy. At least 40 in total. I thought I provided plenty room, and hiding places plus tons of Bladder,Rams-Horn, and Malaysian Trumpets for the Assassins to munch on as needed. 1st the Rams-Horns disappeared. Assassins will go out of their way for a Rams-Horn. Then the shrimp population seemed as if it was shrinking. But I thought I just miscounted. Bladders seemeds unscathed. MTS were taken down sporadically here and there. I re-populated the tank with Rams-Horns from another tank and soon all were obliterated. And then...I noticed that my shrimp colony was indeed shrinking. At this point I decided to try to verify for the general public whether or not Assassins will eat your shrimp by leaving the set-up exactly how it was. Well 4 months later and hundreds(if not thousands) of Rams-Horns later I have only Assassins left alive in this tank. They did manage to eat all the Bladders, and MTS in there as well. BUT they definately ate all my Dwarf Yellow Shrimp.
I keep assassin snails with my shrimp without issue in a 10g tank (countess assassins, countless shrimp). That being said, i have seen them eat one here and there, but as sounguru said, its more likely they were dead.
They weren't dead!! The shrimp would hide in a couple of caves I provided and the Assassins would gather around and wait for them. The Assassins are ambush and opportunistic feeders. They ran out of Rams-Horns which are their favorite meal. And soon found an easy prey in my Shrimp. As Sounguru said some shrimp are kind of stupid. I fed everyone well. Dropped Algae Pellets to feed the shrimp and every thing seemed normal except for the fact that the numbers were definitely falling.
Without seeing an actual kill you can not say for sure that that is the reason for your shrimp loss. I have a tank of cherries with assassins that I had the population drop over time so I too could come to that same conclusion even though I never saw an actual capture. What ended up being the problem was never really determined but after several heavy water changes and swapping out some of the deco and substrate my cherries started to rebound even with the assassins still in the tank. As a matter of fact both the assassins and shrimp populations have grown since I made the changes.
As another example I have a 29 gallon that is my assassin breeder tank that has a healthy population of pest cherry shrimp living with lord knows how many assassin snails a dwarf golden eye and barbs. In this tank if I dump 300 Rams (which reminds me I need to get some more) the assassins in there will wipe them out in less than a week if that gives you a general idea of how many there are and they only get feeder snails say once a month. The cherry shrimp population is still growing although slowly but I blame that more on the Golden Eye who finds baby shrimp as a nice addition to his evening meal when he finds them among all the plants. Kind of funny to watch him hunt the smaller shrimp among the plants.
NYCguppydude I'm not saying that you are wrong but from a scientific point of view not seeing the actual capture then throws the reason for the loss of your shrimp into the theory catergory. I have placed 30 assassins in a tank with 50 cherry shrimp with no cover but a sponge filter or food for the assassins for over 2 months and still never observed a kill and as a matter of fact I removed 58 shrimp when it was over.
Shrimp are a quirky critter and populations can change for many reasons. I had a 15 gallon that I had a massive die off of shrimp thought I had lost a whole colony of blue pearls. So I made it a home for a large swamp cray and he promptly ate every plant in the tank to below the soil level and I had a alage outbreak like you wouldn't believe. Well I found out that 3 of the blue pearls were still alive and the population was back over 50 with no cover and a large aggressive cray living in the tank. So in a tank that goes against what anyone would tell you to do I had a population explosion. Since then the cray has taken a walk about and was probably sushi for the dogs. I have redone the tank added plants plenty of cover and the population of shrimp has stagnated and I have not seen a growth since, although it is holding steady. So I could blame the fact that my shrimp population has stopped producing becasue the crayfish added some magical nutrient that the shrimp needed or that my blue pearls are allergic to plants and a clean tank. Oh and there are no assassins in the tank.
So in conclusion without good and very accurate recording of all parameters no one can say for sure that assassins are the cause for the loss of entire tanks of shrimp an fish that I have seen reported. I will say that assassin can and will eat shrimp on occassion but most reports a I have or have seen are all after the fact type reports and only a handful was the actual capture seen so the person can not say for sure if the assassin killed the shrimp outright or if it was a dying or dead shrimp that he got a hold of.
In order of food for assassins Rams are the main food of choice since they are slower, stay on the substrate, and are easier to get to when they are in the shell. Pond/Bladder are 2nd because they have more speed and spend a lot more time above the substrate where the assassins have a harder time getting to them. MTS are last becasue they can close up tighter and stay burried making it harder for the assassins to get to them.
All in all I think assassins are gonna be one of those critters that have 2 schools of beliefs as to their compatability. There are several critters that we keep today that are the same way one group will say one thing while others will say another. Just remember with any critter that eats other critters for dinner there is always a chance you can loose things that you might want to keep.
I've only witnessed attacks on shrimp if they are either half dead or dead. The cherries even eat the algae slowly growing on the mts and assassin shells while they're moving. Really I don't think assassins are going to ambush some shrimp, more likely snails, but shrimp I highly doubt.
I have a tank of about 40 assassin snails in a 10 gallon with my cherry red shrimp, I haven't seen one dead cherry nor a dead cherry with assassin munching on them.
I have a shrimp only tank and I've been trying to think of something else to put in with them . So if I tried the Assassins and plenty of bladder snails and blood worms they should be pretty safe in a 20 gal tank. I'll give it more thought before I try Thanks
