Nerite snails-yay or nay?

I have at least one Olive Nerite in each of my tanks. Those little snails are work horses! It seems like they never stop cleaning! I use 1 for each 10 gallons. I have 3 in a 5.5 gallon of RCS and I constantly supply the tank with algae wafers. I often see them on the wafers working away!
 
I have noticed teeth marks in leaves of anubias as well.


I have had no issues supplementing olive nerites with algae wafers, but the zebras and c. corona are less apt to take prepared foods with the c. corona being the most difficult in this regard IME.
 
Difficult to feed on cultured algae? Weird. What algae is growing on the rocks?lol I get soft green algae and my nerites race to it although the diffusas just outcompete them easily.:irked:
 
You might be worry too much about feeding. Nerites should and WILL take cultured algae if given. If they aren't taking it as enthusiastically as you want them to be, they may have found a different source in the tank that satisfies their hunger (whether or not you can see them). Nerites won't starve themselves to death. They will eat that cultured algae when they are ready for it, eventually.
 
Good advice on the algae..I should have enough from the goldies and betta tank combined to feed it for awhile. But couldn't hurt to start growing some as well. :thm: What about calcium supplements? Necessary, or is that only in cases of low kh? Oh, and anything to look for in a healthy snail?

I'm going to take a look this weekend. Hopefully they will have some in stock..there weren't any left when my dad took a look last week (But then he may not have been looking carefully and missed them..don't think he even knows what they look like cause he was asking this morning. heh)

P.S Just to share. ..I mentioned to my dad your experiences w/ nerites ...he seems interested, but doesn't quite get the part about algae ("...but they eat algae in the tank..you're not supposed to grow algae for them" )
:)
 
Ponyta said:
Good advice on the algae..I should have enough from the goldies and betta tank combined to feed it for awhile. But couldn't hurt to start growing some as well. :thm: What about calcium supplements? Necessary, or is that only in cases of low kh? Oh, and anything to look for in a healthy snail?
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What are your pH and KH? If both are low, then you may try crushed corals, crushed oyster shells, plaster of Paris, marble chips or liquid calcium by Kent (although this one does not increase pH as it is basically calcium chloride).
 
Does anyone culture diatoms for their nerites? My zebra's quite efficiently cleaned my whole tank in a coulple of days. It seems to be easy to grow if you supply a source of silica.
 
Lupin said:
What are your pH and KH? If both are low, then you may try crushed corals, crushed oyster shells, plaster of Paris, marble chips or liquid calcium by Kent (although this one does not increase pH as it is basically calcium chloride).
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pH comes out 7.0, goes to 7.8. kH is 6
 
Well, finally got a nerite from Big Al's last Wednesday (original store was all out). Its doing a marvelous job at eating green algae (and leaving gifts of lots of snail poo..but what goes in comes out I guess) I was watching it yesterday though, and it spent the whole day in a patch of BBA. This morning patches of the BBA was missing...do nerites eat bba too? Thought nothing eats that stuff as its toxic...Has anyone seen their nerites do this?
 
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