Oops, assassin snails     11/12/12
Neil,
<Jill,>
I just bought two assassin snails and now I'm scared.  Will they attack and kill or injure my small mollies?
<No.>
I have two fry that are probably 1/8".
<Assuming the fry are healthy, the snails can't get them.>
I bought the assassins to help with pest snails but they look kind of scary and big when they're on the prowl and it they attached to a small fish I'm concerned!
<They are quite effective predators, but not that fast. Snails are food, and possibly very small shrimps. Fish eggs will surely be taken, and probably "wriggler" fry before the free-swimming stage. But livebearer fry should be safe.>
I figure if anyone will know the answer to this it would be you.
<Hope this helps.>
Also, I've been feeding once a day, is that good, or twice better?  They're little fish.
<More, small meals best; serious fish breeders will be feeding 6, 8 times a day! They can't actually digest much in one go, so several very small meals is good. In any event, Molly fry should be able to graze some algae as well.>
I'm not sure when to increase food amount for a small female Betta either.....  I've always fed Bettas 2 times daily in small amounts.  She hasn't grown much,  but the mollies are slowly growing.
<Cool.>
Thank you,
Jill
<Welcome, Neale.> 
Re: Oops, assassin snails     11/13/12
Thanks Neil.
<Gill,>
There's plenty of algae and this morning the mollies went to town on the squash I'd placed at night for the pest snails that the pest snails totally ignored! I clipped it to the glass as someone suggested to do with zucchini (squash similar and a little less expensive).....  It sounded like such a brilliant plan. Maybe pest snails prefer lettuce?  I'll try that and wake earlier to remove the lettuce.
<By all means. For what it's worth, "bait and remove" systems don't work particularly well unless you're prepared to do this every day for weeks at a time, and even then, a few will remain, so you'll have to do the whole thing again a few months later.>
I suppose glass fish would nibble at baby pest snails.
<Parambassis ranga? Never seen them eat a snail, and would find it hard to imagine they would want to.>
Would the little ones eat a larger assassin snail?
<No.>
I've procrastinated getting some glass fish because the fry are still small...but really they're probably more like 1/4- 1/2".
<Parambassis spp are accomplished predators, and I've made the mistake of adding small fish to tanks of adults, and then seen the Parambassis swallow them up! To put this in context, I'm talking about an adult Parambassis around 5-6 cm long swallowing down a juvenile cyprinid around 2-3 cm in length.>
Hard to tell when they're swimming around!
Jill
<Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Oops, assassin snails a 11/13/12
Thanks.
<Welcome. Neale.>