Nerite snails-yay or nay?

Ponyta

Ponyta

AC Members
Dec 21, 2007
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Toronto, Canada
I saw some zebra nerites at my lfs a while ago. I've been thinking of getting 1 or 2 for my planted 10gal housing 1 male betta. My water has a pH 7.8, kH of 6, temp 80F. Think it could work?
For you invert keepers, how fast are they at eating algae? The front and one side of the tank has a covering of green algae. But it doesn't seem to be growing very fast..I'm hoping they don't eat everything too soon.
Also are they ok w/ room temp? (72F). I have a 1 gal they can go into for QT, but no heater that small. (I would be doing daily water changes of course).
 
They'll tolerate 72-80 degrees just fine but make sure when you move the snails to acclimate them to the warmer temperature gradually. It shouldn't take a week for them to eat all of the green algae. Thy work on it constantly.
 
One of my 29 gallon tanks is near a window and keeping it free of algae was next to impossible. With 3 Nerites in the tank (a zebra, bumble bee, and an olive) the algae is no longer an issue. I supplement their diet with pea flavored snail jello.
 
msjinkzd said:
I would not get more than one. They are very proficient at algae eating. How long has the tank been set up?
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I feel I should second this caution. My own reason is that when my tank cracked and I had to replace it with a fresh one that was not yet mature, I began to have real issues getting my nerites to feed while the other shrimp and snails we're perfectly fine. In the original tank the nerites were eating and zooming around, the perfect picture of health, because there was plenty of infusoria and algae. Now I'm not even sure they are responding to cultured algae, much less prepared foods like snail jello and veggie pellets.

My point is that it's best to add them to a mature, cycled, stable tank. It may seem like I'm being over-cautious but I just don't want you to go through the agony of desperately trying to get an animal to eat. I don't think they're particularly difficult to care for, I just had a streak of bad luck. They are cool little critters and I hope I didn't turn you away from them. I hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the responses, want to make sure I'm prepared before I get any snails. The tank has been set up since June. pik01, you were saying you had difficulties getting nerites to even eat cultured algae? I've only heard of them refusing prepared foods before :werd:. What if I fed them w/ algae scrapings from my tank or does it have to physically be growing on the tank walls? The 1 gal is the only thing I have available for QT right now (18 gal tub is occupied w/ my new rummies).
 
In the tank with the 3 Nerites I used to scrape off the algae on the front of the tank only, and left the rest for the Nerites. Now I don't even have to scrape the front. They will also graze on large leaves of plants. Mine graze on large Anubias leaves. I also have smooth, golf ball sized pond stones in the tank. They eat the algae that grows on the stones as well.
 
My nerites don't eat that much algae so instead i feed them algae wafers which they love. I don't think they like my algae lol.
 
Mine are doing a nifty job cleaning up green spot algae in my tank, plus, they are beautiful. They have shown no interest in any kind of food except algae, so as others have noted, keep that in mind. One thing I have noticed recently though, is that in removing the green spot from the Anubias leaves, they seem to be leaving "teeth marks" on the leaf -- kind of skinning it a little. Anyone else notice this with the Nerite snails?
 
Ponyta said:
Thanks for the responses, want to make sure I'm prepared before I get any snails. The tank has been set up since June. pik01, you were saying you had difficulties getting nerites to even eat cultured algae? I've only heard of them refusing prepared foods before :werd:. What if I fed them w/ algae scrapings from my tank or does it have to physically be growing on the tank walls? The 1 gal is the only thing I have available for QT right now (18 gal tub is occupied w/ my new rummies).
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I've been trying and trying to culture algae on river rocks and lava rocks specifically for the nerites, but maybe I haven't given the algae enough time to grow onto the rocks. I have the rocks in algae-seeded containers sitting on the windowsill during the day and under lights at night. Nothing yet.

According to many others, the nerites should readily take to cultured algae. Dunno why mine haven't, I'm still trying a few things but I'm thinking time is running very low.
 
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