# disinfecting living assassin snail shell



## Joseph (Aug 19, 2012)

Couple of months ago I got some assassin snails that came from a tank that had tufts of algae (beard?) in it. The snails looked clean but I gave them a bit of a scrubbing with an old toothbrush, blacked them out for 7 days in a half gallon container (couple of water changes during that period) and finished with another scrubbing. Everything looked good, but one snail has made his appearance to me now with rather large tufts of algae on his shell.

How can I disinfect the shell without harming the snail?


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## zfarsh (Apr 7, 2011)

my Cherry Shrimps do the cleaning on the shells of the snails, and so does other Apixi snails i have. Its not fast, and you dont control it, but its effortless.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Same here.. any snail with algae or anything else on the shell gets cleaned up by the shrimp. Ghosts especially seem to like picking at snail shells, as do the Snowballs, and the Whiskers do it sometimes too. 

May take some time but eventually the snails will be spotless. I also see my Nerite snails eating algae off other snails.. mystery snails mostly. They love brown algae.. don't know if they eat beard algae though.


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## Joseph (Aug 19, 2012)

The tank already has cherry shrimp, rams horn and pond snails (and daphnia). The assassin looked clean when I put it in, but this algae has grown despite the shrimp and snails already being established in the tank.

Except for the ghost shrimp, I don't have experience with the other shrimp. Will the ghost shrimp have a negative impact on the cherry shrimp population?

Is there a chemical dip I could use that won't kill the snail?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Anything that would kill the algae would kill the snail too. I'd suggest using a tooth brush and scrubbing the shell with that. Ghost shrimp won't bother adult Cherry types, but they will eat babies if they find them.

I kept Ghosts [ started with 20 ] , Whiskers, [ had 6 or so], and a couple dozen Snowballs in the same 30G tank, with Danios, Kuhli loaches, Cory's. I certainly had baby Snowballs grow up. But not in the numbers I'd have expected for the number of Snowball shrimp I had.. but then, both the larger shrimp and the fish were predators and must have eaten their share of baby Snowballs. Still, the numbers did grow.

They had lots of wood,rocks and plants to hide in, which I know helped keep babies alive long enough to outgrow the danger size.

Assuming you have a robust population of Cherries already reproducing and plenty of hiding places, a few Ghosts probably would not have much impact on their numbers.

But a toothbrush is guaranteed not to eat baby shrimp . I doubt the snails will mind. You might even be able to use a dull blade to scrape off algae, if you were careful.


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