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Sharing some algae & "pest" snail successes


TOtrees
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We've all read a ton of posts along the lines of "help snails out of control" or "algae ruining my tank". I wanted to share a couple of recent/ongoing successes in my small 15-20 tank fish room, as a sort of "lessons learned" message to new and/or frustrated and/or confused aquarium keepers.

For these common problems, the "veterans" in the forum here (and elsewhere) often come back with the same old replies: turn down your lights, feed less, change more water, add this or that species. And the askers then list a litany or reasons that none of the options will work. But you know what? There's a reason the same answers keep coming back. They work. 

Algae: My 20g long multifasciatus shell dweller tank was getting trashed by black beard algae, green hair algae, and brown and green algae on the glass. The lights were already pretty low. I run a decent amount of filtration in the tank, so floating plants (even with a corral) weren't possible. Fast-growing stem plants also not possible (because multis). There is a virtual army of small trumpet snails, but they don't eat any of the problem algaes. These fish are one of best hobby-supporters, in that they breed regularly and fetch a decent per-fish price, so I'm not willing to make changes that will reduce fry production. So I've added the following critters, and the algae is 75% better in 1-2 weeks, and continuing to improve: marbled limpet, nerite snail, bn pleco & siamese algae eater. Some details: Marbled limpets are not the tiny pest limpets, but a larger type that is similar to nerites. They are aces for tough algae on glass and rocks, but don't venture onto the substrate or plants much. The SAE wouldn't be my first choice for compatibility, but over a few days it figured that if it hangs out on top of the anubias leaves near the surface, the multis don't bother it during the day. I'll likely add the SAE to a different community tank, and maybe return it to the shellie tank periodically if and as required. My point is, the right algae eaters DO actually eat the algae. It might require some trial and error to find the right one (or ones), and it might take time to fix. But it works. 

"Pest" snails: My other success is with ramshorn and pond snails. I won't say this doesn't require some effort/time on my part, but it's occasional, and worth it. I firmly believe that some snails, and by that I mean more than just a few, are usually a good thing. If they're not at infestation-level populations, they provide more benefit than harm. The eat detritus, keep plant matter looking fresh, and so on. But if you're like me, and feed all your tanks for conditioning adults or growing fry, any snails you have will love those conditions and will breed like crazy. My approach has been to keep a few assassin snails in each tank, and in the few cases where I can't or where they aren't able to keep up, I collect the pest snails and move them to my largest tank, where I have a virtual herd of assassins and they gobble up any new ramshorns in short order. That tank provides enough assassins over time that I can sell them for a bit of hobby support. To my surprise, 1-2 assassins has even worked in my bare bottom 20 gal bn pleco growout tank. This tank is fed heavily with canned beans, and it also has a group of medakas so fish food also. It had pond snails and ramshorns, and both were getting out of control. I added 2 assassins many months ago, and over a few months they pretty much eliminated the ramshorns. I didn't see any control of the pond snails for the longest time, but eventually, 6 or so months down the road, they're down to the point where I can remove 1 of the assassins. This is a room temp tank, too 🙂 

To collect snails from the tanks that don't have enough assassins (or where I don't want to add them because of snails I want to keep, like chopstick or rabbit), I use algae pellets or broccoli stalk peels to draw the pest snails into big groups, then use a 3" wide net to pick them up (food and all), then transfer them to the bigger assassin tank. I also like the Ista snail trap, which you can bait with pellets, let it soak for 1-2 hours, remove snails, then return it for another 1-2 hours, and so on. 

Edited by TOtrees
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I have limpets - the little clear ones.  They were getting annoying at one point when I was raising mystery snail babies, because there was an abundance of food. When I was adopting snails out, I had to remove limpets from all the snail shells so I didn't send limpets home with people. I also had to scrape the front glass if people were coming over to select snails.  I just pushed them straight down into the sand with my AAA card, right before the people showed up. LOL

I still have limpets, but their numbers are very few, as the tank is now a shrimp tank, and the shrimps do not require large amounts of food like the snails did.  I don't mind them as much now that their numbers are in check.

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I love the marbled limpets, but I've only ever seen them at one store up here in Toronto area https://shrimpfever.com/. They are really good at forcing their way below the line where the sand (my preferred substrate for shellies and cories, which are in about half of my tanks) meets the glass, and clean up the algae line there. One of them in a 10 or 20 gallon keeps the glass clean enough that I rarely or never have to scrape it. They lay egg cases on the glass just like nerites, and from my research they breed the same way (zoes in salt or brackish, adults in brackish or fresh). But the eggs are few and far between. One of these days, I'll try to hatch some in saltwater conditions. 

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On 4/19/2023 at 9:08 AM, TOtrees said:

and clean up the algae line there

I would love that. I really need a critter to do that in my shrimp tank because I can't vacuum it anymore; there are always little shrimplets.

On 4/19/2023 at 9:08 AM, TOtrees said:

One of these days, I'll try to hatch some in saltwater conditions. 

That thought has crossed my mind as a something-to-try one day: breeding nerites. I heard it's hard to do? Wouldn't it be fun to see all the different patterns on the babies?  Not sure how that all works with the genetics, but maybe one day when I have some time I will look into it.  I'm sure some other hobbyist or biologist has made a chart on it at some point.

I visited Toronto before.  It was fun.  I toured through Casa Loma while I was up there.

Edited by Chick-In-Of-TheSea
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