Confusion About Lighting.

Ah-ha, the girl pulled it from the glass! That can injure them slightly so it could just be sitting tight healing itself. Don't give up on it just yet.

For future reference, if you want to remove one from something, don't pull it off. Wiggle it gently till it decides it doesn't like it and lets go. Or if it's on something you want to take out of the tank (like on my piece of wood during a water change, the wood falls over very easily and gets in the way) just put the object in a bucket. The snail will quickly realise its not in water any more and close its operculum - and fall into the bottom of the bucket where it can easily be picked up and put back in the tank.

I've had nerite snails for years and I've never seen one touch an algae wafer or pellet. I've had apple snails that loved courgette and lettuce but I never saw the nerites eat any. Of course, they could be eating them when it's dark 
I've heard good things about Kesgrave trops, it's the postage that puts me off. It's double that for fish! I've just looked on ebay at their listings and I notice they also sell horned nerites. Those are the small ones and if the zebras have trouble climbing over your plants because they are too heavy, the smaller and lighter horned nerites will manage it. Unless you have snail eating fish of course. My zebras are OK with dwarf chain loaches but I wouldn't risk the smaller snails with them.

Snails are usually posted with just a bit of damp tissue or filter floss rather than in water. Kesgrave might be different - if they do post them in water, acclimate the snails the same as you would for fish.

No, they are not nocturnal. They seem to be 24 hour ceatures. You can see them all day wandering over things looking for algae, and you also get up in the morning to find they've cleared a whole patch of algae that was there the evening before.
Several years ago, in the 60 litre tank that sprung a leak last year I used to have a filter called a Hagen Trio 2000. This was a flat rectagular box and the front cover got covered in algae. At this time I only had nerites in my 125 litre so I borrowed one. It found the filter within a few hours and created some wonderful patterns as it ate its wandering way over the plastic. The pattern changed hour by hour, and was totally different each morning. Once the filter had been scoured clean it turned its attention to other, slightly less lush regions. Then it just sat there for a few days as it had obviously stuffed itself. I was worried it was dead but it was just suffering from overeating 

Hi Mervyn,
Congratulations on your new Nerites! It’s really good that you were allowed to have them – they are real little helpers. As for them being escapists, I read a few times that they do this when they are not happy with the water conditions they are in. I cannot quite comment on that but can say that they never tried to escape from my tanks – my tanks all have glass covers with quite large cuts out for equipment and I never had them crawling out – they go close to the edge of water and then go back. I never had them trying to escape. If buying them from shops, it is good to ask the staff to pick one for you which you can see moving along the glass or the substrate. Of course, you cannot do this if buying online... But do report back to Kesgrave tropicals if you have a non-active specimen – I would think they should give you a refund.
Hopefully, your tank will be moving in the right direction now. It is just a little patience needed as good changes tend to happen much slower that bad ones in aquariums! Also, this new routine will have to be “fine tuned” as you go to find the optimum for your specific tank – but this is all the fun: to be moving towards optimum. When an optimum is achieved , the routine will become probably less time consuming but in a way a little bit boring because everything will be running fine and there will be no case to employ “little grey cells” (Poirot). This is why many people who had themselves “hooked” onto planted tanks start changing layouts and trying new plants!
With your tap water, I think you need to decrease the amount of fertilizer (lower it to 4 ml). This is a correct thought from you – ideally you should have gone for a “complete” version as plants’ main “food” is carbon, Nitrates, Phosphates and Potassium. Micronutrients which I understand your current fertilizer has are already present in your tap water as it is hard (maybe not all of them in sufficient quantities and not in the easy for plants form but still...). Again – nothing to worry about. You can (and should) still use this fertiliser and  it will last you for longer. I understand you are on a budget so we will try to sort you tank out spending only a little bit of money (if any). I would not go down on liquid carbon, though – overdosing it is right as far as I can see (even maybe trying slightly more 4.5 -5 ml perhaps?). I think that the main issue to sort now is the flow distribution in your tank – to make so efficient that all corners and nooks have some water moving. This is the only thing I think you may need to spend some money on at the moment. You have a spray bar which is best for your tank. I am presuming that it is positioned along the side of the tank – am I right? You have a good filter – Eheims are rated very highly, and it is a much better litres per hour is way better than the filter you had. The effect you need to achieve is that the water from the spraybar goes along the length of the tank, hits the opposite side wall, goes down and then flows along the bottom in the opposite direction towards the filter inlet. Of course, pieces of decor and plants will alter/slow down the flow. So, what I am thinking: could you have a look at the side of the tank opposite to where you spraybar is positioned – do you see any movement of plants? If you don’t, that means the power of the flow does to bring it quite to the opposite side wall of your tank. If this is the case, perhaps, it would be better to buy another additional matching spraybar on Ebay, connect it to the one you have and position the new long one along the back wall (the longest one). The filter intake can be positioned on the same wall either corner. This is “fine tuning” and positioning of the spraybar and the intake can be althered until you see and feel that most of the tank has some water movement. This will only require some additional tubing and a spraybar (even second hand). These are the only expenses which I think you could have now. As your tank develops, more “fine tuning” will probably be needed – not necessarily involving any more spending....
P.S. I love your boesemani rainbows - very beautiful fish and suited to your water parameters well!

Well the 3 new nerite snails arrived......I must say that they were extremely well packed....they have been floating in the bag in the tank  for 15 mins and all showing signs of movement. I will place them in the tank in about another half hour.

Onve again thankyou very much indeed Natalia for your help.

Now, these four Nerites I have seem to be doing an excellent job. If and when they run out of algae what to feed them on?

I have been reading up and many people seem to think that they are very,very fussy and will only eat algae?

I do have plenty of algae wafers but I suspect my other fish including platies and mollies will devour them before the snails get a chance? Has anyone ideas of what they will eat?

Thanks

Thanks Sue...I have also read somewhere that some of them can be tempted with a piece of carrott! ? 

Mind you might be worth trying the old dried seaweed.

Thankyou Natalia,
I will certainly keep you informed of how it is going.  As you have already mentioned, I think it will be a slow process. The snails continue to do a great job and they have all decided to work on one half of the tank first.

There is something I forgot to mention about the snails. If you have at least one male and at least one female, they'll lay eggs like sesame seeds all over your decor, especially wood. They stick quite tight, I've given up trying to get them off the wood as I was gouging chunks off. The plus side is they won't hatch, and even if they do, the baby snails need salt water to grow so you won't be overrun with them. Of course you might be happy with that, now that apple snails are being banned, as nerites would sell for more money.........

Hi Mervyn I have a heavily planted tank and have been having the same issues as you have had mine was down to a flow issue. I put my spray bar on the rear of my tank in the middle and added two power heads either side now my flow is fantastic and all my plants are swaying lovely my algae now seems to be disserpearing you don't need to go for the expense of power heads but go with natalia idea of having two spray bars running across the back of your tank as this will get your ferts and carbon  to all parts of your tank where your plants will bennifit more helping to ruduce your algae problem