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Snails?

2K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  Ramla 
#1 ·
So I am thinking I am going to look into getting a snail for my fish tank, to help with a few housekeeping things. I just had a batch of anacharis not work so well for me XD, so I have some debris left from that, that I am working on cleaning out, and I have an algae problem. I've tried to fix with simply cutting the amount of light the tank gets, but that hasn't worked and it still comes back.

SO...I figured since the ghost shrimp helped out before, but Odin decided he wanted them for snacks, I thought maybe I'd get a snail, something he shouldn't be able to eat.

So questions would be does anybody have any tips or preferences, to type and care? I've never had a snail before, so I'm a little clueless. Do I have to worry about them trying to get out of the tank? There are two openings in the tank, one for the filter and another to feed him through.

And I know snails create quite a bit of waste, currently my tank is 3 gallons but it will be upgraded to a 5 this summer, my current cleaning schedule is 50% once a week, tank is cycled and filtered, was planted but no longer is so will likely need to up water changes a bit. But does anybody have suggestions on if I need to do more water changes or change other things?
 
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#2 ·
I recommend a nerite snail. They are the best algae eaters, as far as snails go. They don't really attract bettas' attention so your betta probably won't attack it, and they will lay eggs but they only hatch in brackish water so you won't have a snail population explosion. If your tank is cycled, you won't have to do any more water changes than usual. They also have a relatively low bioload so one in a 3 gallon is fine. Mine have never come out of the tank. They have come above the water level slightly, but never totally out of the water. I heard that they will leave the tank if the water parameters are bad. So they should be fine if your tank is cycled.
What kind of algae do you have? I had brown algae and they did a great job cleaning that, and then I got some blue-green algae which is harder for them to eat, but they still did clean most of it out of my tank.
Nerites are kind of difficult to find, though. I had to call a bunch of stores before I found one that sells them. Then a month later my Petco randomly got some in. They don't usually have them, though. Someone told me you can special order them through Petco, though.
 
#3 ·
Take look at my signature and see what all I have in my tank. I do a 25% change once a month and weekly vacuums of the betta sand. My tank is planted and cycled and I add water atleast twice a week due to evaporation.

My betta keeps the snail population in check by having snacks. His recent one was a ramshorn snail almost the size of a dime. he attacked it a few weeks ago and it recovered. But two days ago he went back and finished the job. Any small snail I have in my tank usually ends up on the bottom as an empty shell.
 
#5 ·
So does anyone have any suggestions for maybe another type of snail? I can't get a nerite snail around here, unless I order one, but idk if I want to do that, since to me it seems a bit cold still to be ordering something live that requires a warmer environment :/
 
#6 ·
Nerites are probably your best bet if you're *only* looking for snails and have an algae issue. The other commonly suggested snails is the mystery snail, but

1. They can get kind of big. I can't make a comparison picture right now, but I'll show you what my current snail looked like the day I got her, and what she looks like now.

2. They poop all day every day which adds a considerable amount to the bioload. In a three gallon tank, you're really gonna have to stay on top of your water changes, and you'll probably have to do more than one 25% a month, despite your tank being planted.

3. IME, mystery snails don't really do much for algae. Yeah, they'll eat some of it, but the ones I've had seem to prefer decaying plant material. My previous one used to eat brown algae, but that's it really.


If algae is the only reason you're interested in a snail you could add some more plants. I read that anacharis didn't really work that well for you, but you could maybe try hornwort or some other nutrient hogging plants? (Giant) duckweed and frogbit both work really well for me. You could also try to squeeze in an extra water change here and there to get rid of the excess nutrients in the tank that the algae is using.
 
#7 ·
Hmm alrighty...the big issue is even with plants, my tank gets a considerable amount of light, and that is why the algae is continuously coming back I believe. Which I've been making sure I turn it off after the same amount of hours each day. However it is just the way it is set up currently, and really the best set up that I can afford right now. And it will be changing come summer when I move back home and move him into a bigger tank.

But thanks for the info, I have little to no experience with snails. So maybe I will go to the petco here and ask if I can get them to order it and deliver it there rather than to my dorm.
 
#8 ·
Pictures would help. What kind of tank? What kind of light? What is your lighting schedule like? How long has the tank been setup? How long has it been cycled?

In a tank that small, I do not know what you could use to fight algae, like Flourish Excel.

A snail will help, but it is also best to find out why the algae is coming in the first place.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Algae come from high nitrate levels. Frequent 25% water change coupled with reducing light exposure will fix it.

I don't have any tanks smaller than 5G, but I keep 1 Apple Snail per 10G tank (2 in a Sorority 20G tank) and it does help. I do lost 2 Apple snails, however. Dunno if they were eaten by the Bettas :)

The only problem with Apple snails is that they grow big too fast for my liking. I don't have any luck with nerite snails, as the smails from my order are all DOA; they probably got hold up by my State Agriculture officers, and they just took out all the water from the bag!!! :-(
 
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