Which snails for a planted tank

[evercl92]

I'm looking to get rid of the small amount of green algae growth that I have on the glass. Oto's, rubbernose, SAE, farlowella, none of them touch it. Is it a safe assumption that snails will eat this? I want a snail that I can control the population of (thus no MTS). It also has to be plant friendly (obviously).

Are nerite snails my only/best option? If so, does anyone have any for me to buy / trade for plants ?

 

[onah]

where are u located? and u can go with mystery(bridgesii) they dont eat live plants, only dead foliage.

 

[JRagg]

I've found that my snails (MTS and tiny ramshorns) don't really clean the glass very well. They eat dead plant matter more than anything else.

The only thing that has ever done my glass any favors is me scrubbing it once a week. You shouldn't have a lot of buildup over the course of a week, and if you do you have more serious issues to contend with.

 

[onah]

na the snails will help, but he is right, u shouldnt see anything that bad in a wk. the ramshorns and mts are more substrate cleaners, mystery tend to clean the heck out of alge.

 

[shayfish]

I recently got a couple of mysteries for my 55 gal and definately have seen them hard at work cleaning the place up. I have even seen them cleaning the plant leaves with no damage to the plants whatsoever.

And to boot, they're pretty neat to watch. Go mysteries!

 

[fish_4_all]

My ramshorn pond snails eat a lot of algae, I even see them munching on the BBA from time to time. They do explode in population if you overfeed. Mystery snails could do the trick and you can remove the egg cases because they are laid above the water line.

Nerites could work and are supposed to eat a lot of algae but I have no experience with them.

 

[Zezmo]

If you are talking green spot algae on the glass, then bumping up the phosphate should cure it. As for something that actually eats GSA. Well sure plecos and even snails may nibble at it. But they will not remove it all. Bottom line is, Aquarium glass needs to be cleaned on occasion. Balanced nutrients, and good animals may make it so it has to be cleaned less often.

As for snails that actually eat GSA, I have seen Nerite Limpets actually eat a spot or two, but since they wander all over the glass they really don't clean it all the way.