Are Snails The Solution Rather Than The Problem For Once?

Hi all,
Being a relatively new fish keeper, I predictably experienced a 'snail plague' through a combination of overfeeding and not checking my plants thoroughly enough! I cut back the feeding and bought 3 assassin snails to sort the problem out. The assassins have been an incredible success and its now rare to see more than one or two pond snails in my tank.

I'm now starting to get algae growing on the glass of my tank. The shrimp are doing a great job at keeping the plant clean, but do nothing for the glass. My tank is a 40cm cube (55l, ph7.4 with harder water) and relatively new so a Pleco is not an option, neither are otos as the tank is close to max stocking. That's left me to conclude that other than manual labour, the best option for keeping my glass clean are nerite snails. My concern is that they will just be a feast for my assassins. My LFS assures me that nerites are too large for assassins to eat, but would like some advice from the forum if possible.

Has anyone kept nerites with assassins successfully, and what size nerite is the minimum to be kept safely? Alternative suggestions for keeping the glass clean is also welcome!

Cheers Brian, that's what I thought. They're 4 quid each at my LFS but I spotted 10 for under a tenner on ebay. Tempted to ask my LFS if they'd trade assassins for nerites, but my three amigos seem settled and are doing a great job. Guess I better get the algae scraper out!

if your getting lots of  algae build up on the glass in your tank there is other things to consider aswell , one is if there is still to much waste food in tank that can cause  algae in the tank another possible cause is amount of light in the tank , how long to do you currently have your day lights on for and a 3rd possible cause could be what tap water treatment you use i use to use api stress coat which had aloe vera in it but i was getting huge  algae build up so i switched to api tap water conditioner and this helped to reduce my  algae a fair bit - but there is still no substitue for a bit of a scrub

I found that some of my tanks were getting algae on the front glass a lot more than others. It didn't take long to figure out that those nearer windows, though not receiving direct sunlight, were the worst affected. I tested this by hanging a dark cloth over the front of these tanks for a while, so that they were only lit by the tank lights which resulted in a rapid and dramatic reduction in algae on the glass. Even if a tank isn't receiving direct sunlight the ambient light levels can still be very high, particularly  if, as in my case, the windows are more or less south-facing. Even large numbers of Malaysian trumpet and small snails made little impact, only my bristlenose plecs manage to keep the glass clear.

one of my 10 gallons in directly in front of a window and gets this really tough green algae.its so hard to get off by rubbing so i have took other methods into use.but i have found that a sock is really good at getting it off.im so weird 

You're only weird if you don't take the sock off first!

Quote from: brian c on December 11, 2014, 11:18:15 AM

one of my 10 gallons in directly in front of a window and gets this really tough green algae.its so hard to get off by rubbing so i have took other methods into use.but i have found that a sock is really good at getting it off.im so weird 

You're only weird if you don't take the sock off first!

how did you know?

I love nerites 


A tip if you are worried one might have died - dead shrimps snails stink! Take a gentle sniff of the suspect; I say gentle as the smell lingers in the nose for hours if you get a good strong whiff 


Edited for use of wrong word 

Ooops 

Corrected!

Definitely the same seller and an absolute bargain!

I think I got an onion, a tiger, a zebra, a horned bumblebee and a dusky nerite along with a MTS and a Long Nose Snail (Stenomelania torulosa). All were fine except the horned bumblebee which was DOA

They are exceptional algae eater, but I must say the Long Nose Snail scared the life out of me when he emerged from my substrate after going missing for a couple of days!