Double Duty

[paulthegreat]

Are there any fish that do a GOOD job on both algea and snails and would be compatible in a 30 gal with Swordtails??

 

[paulthegreat]

Any ideas?

 

[mattbeau]

sorry this is long (it seems I got out of hand)


sounds to me you have too many nutriants in the tank, sparking an algae bloom, snails love algae, among other things


the snail population may (oddly as it sounds) be balancing the algae bloom and keeping the algae down. removing the snails will unfortunately let the algae get out of hand, unless of course you can find a fish that does an absolute fantastic job on algae

Oto's can do a decent job, if they feal like it, (mine dont)

unfortunately I cant think of any fish that do both algae and snails to the degree your looking

Heres my experience

my 20 gallon community
no algae(or negligable)
probably had about 500 snails in there (waaaay out of control)
did the great snail massacure killing just about all of them, thourgh vigourous sand removal and dumpoing and boiling and replacing(it was a dark day for the snails)

well shortly there after I started a planted tank, got the CO2 going micro nutrients and what not (lots of info in that part of the forum) and wouldnt you know it the plants started growing like mad

ran out of micro nutrients and yeast (need to go shopping) within about 12 hours my tank was green with hair algae

today I found snail eggs(which i squashed of course)

so your looking at either getting a snail eater (botia loaches are good if you can fit them in)
a good algae eater (otos can be good)

or perhapse cutting back on feading and doing more frequent water changes to remove excess nutrients, leaving the light off for a longer period of time (perhapse putting it on a timer) add plants to take in excess nutrients



thats all I can think of though

good luck

 

[paulthegreat]

No algea problems and I have done a major cleaning, washed plants in tap, boiled gravel and roots drained entire tank. Short of the story...not seen a snail in four days, going to get a decent solitary algea eater maybe a Bristlenose Plec.

 

[Dwarfs]

Snails are good, they eat leftover anything and help to keep algae in check, I actually try to start pond snail populations in my tanks but I have a feeling that there are some certain cichlids devouring them For algae, 4 otos or a rubbernose pleco would do the job, I can't think of any small snail eating fish that won't cause more problems than they're worth though