Assassin snail, scientifically known as Clea Helena is a pretty snail with a mixture of dark yellow and black in color. It is a carnivore, and so does feed on large number of things, especially it’s fellow snails and anything else it could kill. Assassin snails, also known as kill or killer snails, many times do stay in substrates and gravels. If you have this snail as pet, by now you must have been wondering why they always stay in gravel and substrate or do they live there?.
Assassin snails does not entirely live on gravels and substrates, although they love and enjoy staying there. Sometimes they do stay in gravels and substrates to ambush their preys.
Assassin snails are very beautiful to see in an aquarium and they do make fine pets, especially to help you to control the menace of other snails in your aquarium, but sometimes, your killer snails will be seen at the bottom of the aquarium and under gravels or substrates, ( if you have one in your aquarium) you may be disappointed that they don’t seems to be active and so are not doing the work you might want them to do, which is eating menacing snails in the aquarium.
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Well, you don’t have to be disappointed.
Those killer snails love staying in gravels and substrates, it is their nature.
Many times, what they are doing is just simple.
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They are laying ambush to unsuspecting preys which they can easily trap and eat.
They may not live permanently on gravels and substrates,but they may sleep and hide under them.
This is why sometimes, you might find them missing in your aquarium foro so long.
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This is simply because they may be hiding on gravels or burrowed inside the substrates in your aquarium.
Do Assassin Snails Burrow Into Gravel?
Assassin Snails do hide and stay on gravel, infact they love it. The question is, do they burrow into gravel or they hide under it?
Assassin Snails do burrow on gravels, but can’t burrow inside gravel because they don’t have the capability to dig into gravel.
There is a very big difference between burrowing on a bunch of gravels and burrowing into a gravel.
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Some people do misunderstand the two, especially non English speakers.
The first sentence simply means separating a bunch of gravels in order to stay hidden under them etc, but the later means digging inside a gravel, which is impossible for assassin snails.
Yes they do burrow on bunch of gravels because they prefer staying under or in between them inorder to relax or hide to hunt.
Do Assassin Snails Need Sand?
You might be wondering if they do need sand also. like they do need gravel.
Yes assassin snails do need sand ( substrates) as much as they do need gravel in their aquarium. They enjoy staying, burrowing and hiding on substrates.
This snails are killer snails, and are very good at hunting, so they sometimes do hide inside sand to lay ambush etc.
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Also when they have rivals in the tank, substrates can help them to hide. So they need sand and enjoy staying in it.