Introducing pest snails to help with algae

[Connershawzz]

The water changes aren’t working with my brown algae and it isn’t to bad but it’s getting pretty ugly. I have a bunch of pest snails in my shrimp tank. I’m thinking of just putting some into my main tank to help eat up the algae somewhat. I don’t mind having them in there I know people hate them tho thoughts ?

 

[JackGulley]

Sounds fine to me, so long as you don’t mind them.

 

[Colin_T]

They will eat the algae and breed prolifically and you will have more pest snails to deal with. Add them if you want but it's not the best way to deal with algae. Look at the lighting, fertiliser and plants and see which one is out of whack. When you get them balanced, the plants grow while the algae doesn't.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

By brown algae, do you mean diatoms? They're quite common in new aquariums and will slowly but surely go away on their own once they've depleted their food source. Manual removal is your best bet until then

 

[Magnum Man]

Just as an FYI… I had a pest snail infestation in a tank, and also an algae problem… pest snails were often on the glass, yet I never did see much algae disappear from the glass, due to pest snails

 

[MaloK]

Loll.

Nobody eats brown diatoms.

But they are super easy to remove. It's like powder.

And they help you adjust your water flow during this time.

 

[JackGulley]

I’m an idiot
Yeah forget what I said earlier, the snails won’t eat brown diatoms BUT it takes like 30 seconds to wipe them off with a magic eraser. I just do it every few water changes.

 

[14efish]

I hate snails. I have had major problems and thought I had gotten rid of them but they somehow came back on something. But my zebra loaches love to chase them down and eat them, with some help from my kuhli loaches so I have let them stay, the only down side is I have black gravel and now a lot of empty dead snail shells all over. I also had an algae problem and the only way I got rid of it was to get a filter that is made to kill algae. No one ever told me about it on this forum, in any of the fish stores (and I hit every store in Denver) my husband found it online. It worked. My algae so bad I couldn’t see the fish. Better than putting chemicals in the water.

 

[Myrkk]

I think empty snail shells add to the beauty of the tank, not for the snails though obs. However, that may just be me lol.