cleaning snail shells????

[butterflylove]

i have 2 mystery snails in my 20 gal tank. i have had them in there for a lil over a month, and they have been doing great. one of them has a nice clean good colored shell. the other ones shell looks greenish and kind of ugly. i was wondering if i could maybe clean his shell some way???? brush off some of the stuff, if it will come off???
sorry if this may sound stupid, but the one snail looks GREAT compared to the other.
thanks!!!!! this place has been such a huge help!

 

[OrionGirl]

I would leave it alone. First, the algae doesn't harm the snail in anyway--growing a a cover of algae actually provides it with some camouflage--check out most SW snails, and you'll see they are covered with encrusting algaes, tube worms, etc. Second, anything you do will stress the snail--not a good thing. The other snail may decide to graze on the algae covered one, but outside that possibility, I wouldn't worry about it.