Problem with guppy tank

[mu1147]

I have a ten gal tank with one adult male, one adult female, and two juvenile females guppies. A month ago I put a chinese algae tank to help with the algae growth. It was fine for a week, then one morning found the CAE at the bottom of the tank half eaten. Next added a 2" apple snail, this was really helping until this morning all four of the guppies were attacking the meaty part of the snail that they could get to between the glass and its shell. Is there something I can do to prevent this because I would like to keep him in the tank. If not any suggestions for controlling the algae? I have the snail in a floating tank for now. I guess that the guppies aren't as peaceful as I thought. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Meredith]

yuck! If I had to guess, I would say that your guppies did not kill your CAE. Rather they snacked on him after he died of some other cause. I don't know what is going on with the snails. Otos are great little algae eaters, but need veggies or algae wafers as they deplete the algae in the tank. Good luck!

 

[aquazen]

Otos are nice, but don't depend on them to completely clean out your tank of algae. I still scrape mine at least 2x a month to keep it at 100% visibility. My suggestion is to put in several live plants that grow fast. Moneywort and hornwort are excellent. They use up the nutrients algae would need to grow.

 

[Regen311]

My guppies "attacked" my snail at first too. After about a week, they started to leave him alone. Turns out, the guppies were picking the algae or wahtever was growing on the snail off of the snail. They weren't attacking the snail, although it DID look like they were going after the actual snail and not the shell for a while. But, the snail ils now hyperactive, happy, very hungry, and doing just fine. I"d give it like a day and see what happens. Or, try giving your guppies algae pellets. Mine love those, even though they're labeled as for bottom feeders. My mollies love them too.

 

[mu1147]

Thanks for the advice. I will pick up some algae wafers tonight and give that a try.

 

[youronlysin]

I have a 2 inch snail in a tank with a dozen guppies...both female and male. They all pick at him from time to time, but he has a defense mechanism..he hides in his shell. Hes never been hurt that I can tell and he keeps on truckin. My guppies also tend to pick at each other quite often. They also pick at my plants, but after watching them for a while it seems they are only picking at algae and soft dead plant matter on the leaves. They will actually look the plant over and go for the brown soft dead leaf tips and pick at those, so I gave up worrying about them. So far, they havent hurt each other or anything else. In the same tank, I also have a long finned veil tail betta. They leave him alone completely, and he doesnt bother them a bit either. The large snail, on the other hand, demolishes my plants. Im gonna have to figure out a solution to that.

 

[Regen311]

Good luck It might take them a while to notice the algae wafers, but once mine "discovered" them, they loved them. Now, as soon as I put them in, one of the fish is nibbling on it. Over the next couple hours, they vary between all of them jumping on it and none of them jumping on it, untill it's gone. It helps to break the wafers up into a few smaller pieces as well so they all get a fair change I usually break one up into 3-4 pieces.

 

[mu1147]

Put the wafer in last night and the fish really went after it. They were eating at it for alomost an hour straight. I also added for more plants (plastic) to the planted side of the tank, now it is very heavily planted. They haven't been bothering the snail since. Thanks for the help.

 

[Regen311]

Glad I could help! I just ran out of algae wafers though, and I hate how expensive they are... I'm looking online right now for some cheaper ones somewhere. Again, good luck with everything!