Pest snails help with Algae?

[Mercfh]

So I am curious about this, I have 2 tanks. 1 29g and 1 55. The 55 has quite an algae problem (but it has a stronger light). My 29g has like......zero algae. However it does have a ton of pest snails (something my 55g doesn't have).

Will pest snails maybe help in this case? I don't mind them but I wonder if maybe they would be a better cleanup crew?

Thoughts? Should I transfer some over? (Most of the snails in the 29g are the pointy ones, like mini MTS's)

[MrWestCoast]

Depends on the type of algae you have. Snails will eat the soft brown algae film, but they won't help much if you have green spot algae or any other hard to wipe off algae.

Is your 55g planted?

[AllFishNoBrakes]

In my opinion, snails of all types will 100% help with algae control. They’re not the silver bullet, but they absolutely contribute. 
 

My Pea Puffer tank is the hardest and requires the most manual maintenance because snails are snacks. However, probably 6 months or so ago, I decided to throw some Nerites in the tank and see what happens. The Pea’s have left them alone, and I don’t hardly even have to scrape the glass anymore. Plants are better. Overall, the ecosystem is better, the tank is more hands-off, and I enjoy it more because of that. 
 

Snails absolutely help. 

[Pepere]

I have Ramshorns that hitchhiked on some plants.  I triedmightily to eradicate them before giving up…

I never noticed any great reduction of algae from them.  I found them rather underwhelming in Terms of algae control as I have found with American Flag Fish…

Edited August 14 by Pepere

[DansFish]

What MrWestCoast said. Snails also won't help much with free-floating algae or stringy hair-type algea.

[Shiba]

I watch MD Fish Tanks. He actually likes pest snails because they eat algae. I hear they won't over-populate the tank unless you have a lot of dying plants and/or have been overfeeding. I'd honestly just keep them. Free clean up crew!

[Lennie]

In my experience, not really. They don't even make any visible change on stuff like diatom. And I almost never overfeed a tank.

 

I have mini ramshorns, ramshorn, MTS, pond snail and bladder snail. What's even left lol

 

The answer is basically nothing to make any difference on any sort of algae including soft ones/diatoms. I dont even need to talk about hardy and hairy algaes.

 

I like snails and pest snails don't bother me. I think they are cute. But to me, the one thats actually useful is MTS, not as an algae eater, but as a "cleanup crew" as they devour every tiny bit of extra food pieces, anything potentially dead and such that you didn't notice. Amazing cleanup crew, but they are the only ones it is basically impossible to control their population and to get rid off if not wanted.

 

To be fair, I think even nerites are waaaay exaggerated. Ive kept horned ones, greens and zebras. To me, the potential egg laying everywhere is surely not covering up the some algae they eat. Has been a good while since I kept any, and I notice literally zero difference.

 

For stuff like diatoms, otos are much much better. For hairy type algaes, My go to is SAEs but they need a mid to big size tank.

Amanos also did basically nothing for me when I tried them for very low amount of hair algae I saw. In my experience, amanos are another one that's way too popular in a way peeople see these as a must to have in a tank but hard to observe any actual performance in a community tank.

 

Ik Dan has a video on them eating hairy algae, but nobody has species only tank with starved 100 amanos fed only hairy algae to snack on. To prove the point of them eating it may be valid, but in a community tank, they have many more options to feed from including actual commercial foods and they are in much much smaller groups, they barely care to go and eat any hairy type algae in my experience. My new baby SAE did the job of 3 amanos I had for more than a year in just a couple days 

Edited August 14 by Lennie

[johnnyxxl]

My pond snails cleaned my tank because they were the only livestock in the tank as I planted it a month before I put fish in.  

[JoeQ]

I absolutely hate the term 'pest snail'. Snails are an integral part of a healthy eco system. Lets take the MTS, they churn your substrate, oxygenating it as they go. They also eat left over food scraps and other inhabitants waste products which breaks it down further making it practically inert.

They are also a great visual indicator for over feeding the tank which is shown by a snail explosion.

So while they don't do much to fight algae directly, they do help indirectly by cleaning those items that fuel outbreaks