Nerite vs Thorny Nerite

[AliSab]

So I picked up 3 thorny nerite snails (basically small nerites with a couple of spiked growing out of their shells) and they've been in my 10 gallon for about a week now. I haven't noticed any improvement in any of the soft algae growing on the glass.

Is there a difference in the effectiveness of these two snails? I've read that a single nerite can take care of a 10 gallon, never mind three. The only noticeable difference that I can see is size. Should I get a full sized nerite?

One of them seems to have latched itself to the shell of my rabbit snail and is riding him like a pony lol.

 

[kbuser92]

I'm not sure there is a difference in how much they eat, rather only in aesthetics. I, too bought a horned nerite (all they had was the lonesome fellow at the time) and he was also very small. I have noticed in my new tank that there's nothing that will eat a few types of algae I have. Among my crew are 2 Otocinclus, 2 bristle nose, 3 mature mystery snails and a handful of their offspring (much smaller than your merited, even) and the lone nerite. There's many types of algae they will all eat, but there's other types they will not, i.e. green hair. I would scrub the front viewing pane and leave the rest for them to devour and male an assessment when he gets quite a bit larger. For what it's worth, I do very much like otos for smaller tanks.

 

[AliSab]

I have otos in my big tank and didn't want to move them to my 10 because it was set up for my cories and cpd. The only algae that's growing that I can see is the soft algae on the glass. I know they're eating it because I can see trails of clean glass where they've crawled but it's only like an inch or two that's clean.

Tomorrow is their fasting day so I'd be interested to see if they eat a bit more instead of relying on food on the substrate.