Hired Assassin Working Wonders

A while back, I got myself a tiger loach to murder the pond snails in my aquarium. Snails are really bad news in a planted tank. They kill your plants, and the plants rot, and the rot poisons the water, and your fish get diseases. In addition, the snails themselves die and foul the water. And you probably won't even see them after they die, because they're tiny. I think snails are what caused so many of my fish to get TB and die. In addition to fouling the water, they cut my plants way back, leaving lots of nutrients for algae to grow. And algae makes a tank filthy.

My tiger loach did absolutely nothing. It didn't even glare at the snails.

A few days ago, I added a yo-yo loach to the tank. A very small one. And there were hundreds of little snails on the glass and wood and plants. I figured it would take him a month to get anywhere with them. Well, guess what? I can't see a single snail right now. Surely he didn't eat them all. Maybe he killed them even though he coudln't swallow them. I guess a lot are down on the gravel. He swims around knocking them off things. I could swear he looks 50% bigger than he did when I got him.

I give the yo-yo loach a big thumbs-up. He's kicking ass, and he's much less boring and ugly than a clown loach. I think I'll get a friend for him to play with.